Oriental Research Institute, Mysuru

The Oriental Research Institute in Mysuru started in 1891 as the Government Oriental Library, with Maharaja Chamarajendra Wadiyar X as patron. It is housed in the Jubilee Hall, put up in 1887 to mark fifty years of Queen Victoria's reign, at the northern end of Krishnaraja Boulevard opposite the University of Mysore's Crawford Hall. It passed to the university in 1916 and took its current name in 1943.

The institute collects, exhibits, edits and publishes rare manuscripts in many scripts, including Grantha, Nandinagari, Devanagari, Tigalari, Kannada and Malayalam, and has brought out nearly two hundred titles since 1893. Its best-known work is Kautilya's Arthashastra: a man from Tanjore gave a palm-leaf copy in Grantha script to the librarian R. Shamasastry, whose edition of 1909 made the institute internationally known. That manuscript is still kept here. The institute also publishes an annual journal, Mysore Orientalist.