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Saraswatha Niketanam library
A library is a place where history comes alive. As Longfellow put it, "A student has his Rome, his Florence, his whole glowing Italy within the four walls of his library". In this land of great scholars and scientists, who looked upon books as "embalmed minds", there are still ancient libraries tucked away in remote corners of the country, which house priceless reading material but are in great danger of getting lost owing to lack of patronage from State institutions and poor financial condition.
One such is the hallowed Saraswatha Niketanam library in the tiny Vetapalem village, about 10 km from the town of Chirala, in coastal Andhra Pradesh. Founded by V. Subbaraya Sresti in 1918, the library with as many as 75,000 titles (some volumes date back to 1850), mainly in Telugu, Sanskrit, English and Tamil, along with a rare collection of 1,000-year-old palm leaf manuscripts of the Upanishads, is today seeing hard times because of an acute funds crisis.
Says Mallikarjuna Rao, President of the library, "Even the measly Rs 20,000 yearly grant from the State Government has now dried up, and unless some assistance is rendered quickly by publishing houses, book lovers and corporates, we may not be able to keep the doors open for long to research scholars and students from different parts of the State who still come in search of rare manuscripts."
ITC-ILTD, which has already rendered assistance by repainting and refurbishing portions of the building, has chalked out a plan to restore the library back to proper health.
This library, according to scholars, is a veritable treasure trove of classic pre-independence Telugu literature. Some of the unique possessions are Srimadandhra Bhagavathamu, edited by M. Venkateswara Sastry and published in Madras in 1777, Yuddha Kanda of Valmiki Ramayana, handwritten by Kanchanapalli Venkatrayu of Nellore (some 200 years old), Upanishad Series of 1923 in Sanskrit, Markandeya Purana and Mantra Shastra, works of Zuluri Appaya Sastri, a celebrated Telugu poet of the past, Vishavaidya Chintamani in Telugu (1919) and Oushada Vigyanam (1945). The lending section of the library still has some 400 members.
Rao said after the passing away of V.V. Sresti in 1935, the late Sreenivasa Rao Pantulu, honorary secretary since 1927, nurtured the institution till his demise in 1981. According to Rao, Saraswatha Niketanam, which was also one of the loan libraries to Connemara Public Library, Chennai, has now attained the stature of a Central library for the district, and attracts students from India as well as abroad.
The foundation stone for the library's new building was laid by Mahatma Gandhi (whose broken stick still adorns the main hall of the library) in 1929. According to Rao, "The Mahatma's walking stick is the symbol of progress, and perhaps the secret of success of this institution even under such acute financial stress." The building was later opened by the legendary Tanguturi Prakasam Panthulu.
Dr Rajendra Prasad, the then Congress president, visited in 1935 and laid a "Dhwaja Sthamba" in the library premises, symbolic of a temple of learning. Niketanam acquired a new wing in 1986 with the help of the Raja Ram Mohan Roy Library Foundation, Kolkata, and has plans of further expansion to accommodate the ever-increasing volume of books, newspapers and periodicals being added every year.
Among the political stalwarts who have visited the library and put down their comments in the visitor's book are former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, M. Chenna Reddy and K. Brahmananda Reddy. Narasimha Rao had observed that, "the library deserves massive state government assistance since it has reached a stage when it was no longer practicable to achieve quick and large scale improvement purely from private munificence". Sadly, no major assistance for the library has come, so far, from any government source.
Contributed By: Adi Narayana Reddy S
IBM, Pune.
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