The Oriental Research Institute and Manuscripts Library of the University of Kerala shelters a huge collection of documents: about 30.000 codices/bundles containing approximately 60.000 works. The manuscripts are between 100 and 600 years old, made of different materials, and written in a variety of scripts. After a survey of the library’s history, the speaker will address the manuscript holdings in general, from the points of view of content, material and script, and point out some rare, distinctive and exquisite exemplars.

P. L. Shaji is a retired self-drawing officer of the University of Kerala, where he worked as Manuscript Assistant in the Department of the Oriental Research Institute and Manuscripts Library (ORIML) for more than 35 years. Today he continues to work as a project assistant at the ORIML and the Manuscript Research Center of the National Mission for Manuscripts of the Ministry of Culture, New Delhi, and gives lectures in India and abroad.