(8 Aug 2026) In part 1 of this 3 part series leading up to Book Lovers Day on 9th August, National Librarians Day on 12th August and independence day on 15th August, StoryBoard18’s Reeta Ramamurthy Gupta takes a close look at how libraries came to be built in India.
“India has a rich history of library systems, with the earliest ones dating back to the ancient period, long before printed books existed. From around the 4th century BCE, manuscripts were being written, copied, preserved, and stored in learning centers, monasteries, and royal courts. In the Vedic age, learning was mostly oral, but as writing developed, collections of manuscripts gradually became organized repositories of knowledge.
These early systems were not public libraries in the modern sense. They were usually attached to ‘Gurukulas’, ‘Buddhist viharas’, temples, and universities such as Taxila and Nalanda, where scholars, monks, and teachers kept handwritten texts on palm leaves, birch bark, and other materials.
The main purpose was preservation and study, not open access. Royal patronage also helped these collections grow, especially in important centers of learning. By the early Common Era, India had developed strong manuscript traditions, cataloguing habits, and organized collections at major institutions.”
Read more here.
