CultureEast India Company rule
Serfoji II sets up a Devanagari press at Thanjavur
At Thanjavur, Serfoji II founded the Nava Vidya Kalasala press, the first in South India to print Devanagari.
The Maratha ruler of Thanjavur, Serfoji II, established a stone-type press named the Nava Vidya Kalasala Varnayantra in 1805. No earlier press in South India had printed in the Devanagari script. Its aim was to make European works of literature and science more widely available in the region. Serfoji also dispatched scholars to gather manuscripts, and he enlarged the palace collection considerably; it later became known as the Saraswathi Mahal Library.
