Penn Libraries holds more than 3,000 manuscripts from South Asia, making it one of the largest collections of its kind in the Americas. Comprised primarily of Sanskrit works from the Indian subcontinent, the collection spans a wide thematic range, offering religious texts alongside treatises in philosophy, law, medicine, astronomy, poetics, and courtly literature.

Though spanning from the 16th century into the 20th, the majority of the collection originates in the 18th and 19th centuries. Most are written on paper—some preserving the traditional pothi format—though a number are composed on palm leaf. Many include vivid illustrations, and some are adorned with gold leaf.

The majority of the collection was acquired between 1930 and 1935 under the direction of Professor W. Norman Brown, a foundational figure in South Asian studies. Seeking to build a teaching collection for Sanskrit studies at Penn, Brown collaborated with Narayana Shastri Khiste—his former teacher and a curator in Benares—to purchase manuscripts from learned families in the region.

In 2014, the Penn Libraries received a grant from the Division of Preservation and Access of the National Endowment for the Humanities to support digitization and new cataloging of this collection. Nearly the entire collection is now openly available online via Penn’s digital repositories, Colenda and OPenn. Penn has also recently partnered with institutions in South Asia, namely the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta and the Rāmamālā Library in Comilla, Bangladesh for digitization projects. Once completed, these collaborations will contribute more than 6,000 high-resolution facsimiles, expanding global digital access to South Asia’s manuscript heritage.