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Now you can read digitised books of Asiatic Society Library online

The society makes available nearly 2,000 manuscripts and 10,000 books online from the treasure of the Asiatic Library on its digital initiative ‘Grant Sanjeevani’

Now you can read digitised books of Asiatic Society Library online
SHARES

The Asiatic Society Library is not only one of the most photogenic places in Fort, but also a rich repository of rare documents, books, periodicals, manuscripts and maps. The library houses some of the invaluable resources now over 200 years old, all in a state of despair, with pages too brittle to even touch.

Recently, the Asiatic Society of Mumbai launched its digital library initiative, ‘Granth Sanjeevani’ on January 15. The website makes available nearly 2,000 manuscripts and 10,000 books from the treasure of the Asiatic Library. The project was a government-funded one and took off in 2015. ₹5 crore was sanctioned by the government for the digitisation of the books. Throughout the process, there have been several kinds of donors. The facility was inaugurated by Minister of State for Culture Manish Sharma.

The resources are available at an annual membership fee of ₹2,400. Discounts are available for society members.

Among the wide array of collections including history, literature, botany, theology and many other subjects, some of the books available on Granth Sanjeevani date back to the 13th century.  There are also manuscripts on astronomy and mathematics from the 16th century, written in the Devanagari script.

The website has been designed with filters that will help users search on bases on the format, author, subject, language, publisher, place of publication and year of publishing, alongside the ‘search’ tab, making it user-friendly. One can view the repository along with cataloged briefs of all items. The website is piracy-free and the books can be read only after the payment of fees.

The society works towards adding more resources to Granth Sanjeevani.  Efforts are also on to preserve the hard copies, deposited in the bank vaults. The society president, Sharad G Kale told that funds are being raised for the preservation of books.

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