Oriental Research Institute Mysore

The Oriental Research Institute Mysore is a research center and museum in Mysuru housing thousands of manuscripts and rare texts. The collection includes works in Sanskrit, Kannada, and Tamil covering medicine, astronomy, mathematics, literature, and philosophy.

The institute was founded in 1891 and grew into an important center for manuscript preservation under Mysore State leadership. Its collection expanded continuously as scholarly communities brought their valuable texts here.

The institute preserves one of India's largest collections of palm leaf manuscripts, documenting knowledge traditions from South India. The rooms show how scholars over centuries recorded learning in these precious texts.

Your visit allows you to explore an extensive collection of ancient texts in various languages. Plan enough time to walk through the rooms and study the manuscripts at a comfortable pace.

The institute holds a complete manuscript of the Arthashastra, a classical Indian text on state administration and politics spanning thousands of years. This rare example helped historians reconsider our understanding of ancient India.