The Pondicherry Library

Pondicherry Library

Ecole française d'Extrême-Orient
Centre d'Indologie Po Box 151


16-19 rue Dumas
605 001 Pondicherry, INDIA
Tel. : + 91 413 233 45 39
Fax : + 91 413 233 08 86

Library: Shanty Rayapoulle

The coordination of various research programmes by the Pondicherry Centre of the EFEO has resulted in a collection of documentary resources comprising of 11400 printed volumes, 46 periodicals and 1633 palm-leaf manuscripts. The collection covers different branches of Indology: art, archaeology, epigraphy, grammar, linguistics, literature (Sanskrit and Tamil), traditional medicine, philosophy, religion, etc. and also includes the private collections of Marguerite Adiceam and Françoise L'Hernault. The Centre is also able to benefit from the well-stocked indological library of the French Institute of Pondicherry, which it helped develop and housed in its own premises until 2002.

The Centre's Library has always catered to the specific needs of the philological projects undertaken by indological teams and this has resulted in several unique collections such as the collection of Vaishnava.

The Centre has launched a Archive named SITA (South Indian Temple Archives).

The Centre also holds a precious collection of plans and elevations of South Indian temples, Tamil and colonial houses as well as maps of South-Indian towns and cities.

The Centre houses a collection of about 1633 palm-leaf manuscripts, most of which transmit vaishnava texts in Sanskrit, Tamil, and Manipravalam, which is a mixture of both these languages. In recognition of the importance of the manuscript holdings of the EFEO and of the French Institute of Pondicherry, the "Shaiva Manuscripts of Pondicherry" were in 2005 deemed a UNESCO "Memory of the World" Collection. A project aiming to catalogue this collection is presently underway.

Conditions of use and opening times

From Monday to Friday, 8.30 to 12.30 am and from 2.00 to 5.30 pm

  • Closed on public holidays
  • Loan restricted to EFEO staff
The Pondicherry centre
Head: Dominic Goodall

École française d'Extrême-Orient
 16-19 rue Dumas
605 001 Pondicherry, India

Tel: +91 413 233 45 39
Fax: +91 413 233 08 86
goodalldominic@gmail.com
administration@efeo-pondicherry.org

Read more on the Pondicherry centre
Visit the Pondicherry blog
EFEO News
Exhibition
Pondicherry, India, 19 January 2021
The exhibition "The Five French Settlements in India as Recorded in Eighteenth-Century Plans (1673-1824)" will take place from 19th January 2021 to 28th January 2021 at the French Institute of Pondicherry (IFP).
Jointly organised by IFP, the Alliance française de Pondichéry and the EFEO Centre in Pondicherry, this exhibition, conceived and realised by Jean Deloche, will be held as part of the Pondicherry Heritage Festival 2021.
This exhibition is an introduction to the history of the old French establishments in India and an inventory of their vanished monuments.
Mini Classical Tamil Winter Seminar (CTWS)
Pondicherry, India, 19 January 2021
From 1-5 March 2021 the team of the Tamil Cankam project at the EFEO centre in Pondicherry will conduct a miniature Classical Tamil Winter Seminar in order to read the Kalittokai, one of the Cankam anthologies that have been critically re-edited recently. The text represents the apex of the earlier type of sophisticated poetry, and matters are further complicated by the highly influential medieval commentary by Naccinārkkiṉiyar.
The whole meeting will take place online, the number of places will be restricted to 25 participants. For participation and registration please contact Eva Wilden. READ MORE
Exhibition
Pondicherry, India, 19 January 2021
The exhibition on "The Five French Settlements in India as Recorded in Eighteenth-Century Plans (1673-1824)" is held from January 19 to January 28, 2021, at the Institut français de Pondichéry (IFP).Organized jointly by the IFP, the Alliance française de Pondichéry, and the EFEO Center in Pondicherry, this exhibition, conceived and directed by Jean Deloche, is held as part of the Pondicherry Heritage Festival 2021.This exhibition is an introduction to the history of the former French settlements in India and an inventory of their disappeared monuments.