Library is a place that has a vast collection of books, some of which may not be affordable by means of money and most of which may be a rare collection. A place where you can go and sit in complete peace and consult books on various topics, topics which can be general and also extremely unheard of…

India has a lot of libraries, in fact every town houses libraries…for students, for scholars, for children…basically everyone can find books of their topics of interest in this place that is universally known as Library. If you get to know of a library that is almost unheard of, what would you say?

I have the pleasure of introducing one such library here that I had visited almost 20 years back. It happens to be Asia’s biggest library, and I would like to bring to your notice that it is in such an area which you might never have thought of, may be very few countable numbers know about it. The exact date of the establishment of this library is not yet known but it is almost 25 years old.

It is almost 128 k.m. before Jaisalmer(Rajasthan) in a village by the name of Bhadariya in Pokran district. This library is an underground library and is 16feet below the ground level. On the top is a temple of Devi Bhadriya Mata who is believed to be one of the seven sisters and the most known sisters are Karni Mata and Tanot Mata.

This library has a seating capacity of 4000 people and the temperature down there is so low that you don’t need an AC even in summers. It is taken care of by the devotees who live there and take care of the temple as well. 7-8 lakh rupees per year are spent on this library for the purpose of maintenance.

It houses more than 9 lakh books which have been so neatly lined up in shelves with glass sliders that one would feel scared to touch them for fear of spoiling the books. Scholars from all over the world visit this library for research purposes as this has books which include topics in various languages for science, astrology, astronomy, epics, history, various dictionaries, atlas and a lot more.

The founder of this library is enjoying his peace with the Almighty now. He was known as Bhadariya Maharaj, originally from Punjab with the name Shree Harbansh Singh Nirmal. He was a very pious man true to his name Nirmal… a gentle soul who collected these books from various corners of the world and some are gifted collections as he would not ask for money from anyone. Any donation that used to come to the library would be spent only on books.