Sayajirao Gaekwad Library
building in India
The Sayaji Rao Gaekwad Library, also known as the Central Library, is the main library of Banaras Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh in India. Established in 1917, it is listed in the Survey of Manuscripts in India. The present building of the library was built in 1941 on pattern of British Museum, at the suggestion of Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, the founder of university, after his return from the Round Table Conference, London in 1931, with a donation from the Sayajirao Gaekwad III, Maharaja of Baroda State from 1875 to 1939, known for establishing libraries throughout his state.
It is also a designated 'Manuscript Conservation Centre' (MCC) under the National Mission for Manuscripts established in 2003.
History
The Banaras Hindu University Library system was established from a collection donated by Prof. P.K. Telang in the memory of his father Justice Kashinath Trimbak Telang in 1917. The collection was housed in the Telang Hall of the Central Hindu College, Kamachha. In 1921, the library was moved to the Central Hall of the Arts College (now Faculty of Arts) and then in 1941 to its present building. The library was established with the donation from Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad III of Baroda, on the pattern of the library British Museum in London on the suggestion of Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, the founder of university.
The library had a collection of around 60,000 volumes in 1931, through donations from various sources.
“Sayajirao Gaekwad Library” enters the record as building in India. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Sayajirao, Gaekwad and Library can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Sayajirao Gaekwad Library” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Sayajirao, Gaekwad and Library provides the most credible route into that argument.
Maps, plans, fabric surveys and administrative records can establish how the site’s name, extent and function changed over time. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7429088. VIAF identifies the subject as 158732460. The Library of Congress control number is nr98022700. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1917, 1941, 1931 and 1875.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sayajirao Gaekwad Library” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.