Khuda Baksh National Library, Patna, Bihar India

Khuda Baksh Oriental Library is one of the national libraries of India and was opened in October 1891 by Khan Bahadur Khuda Baksh. It has 4000 manuscripts at that time. It has a rare collection of Arabic and Persian manuscripts and paintings of the Rajput and Mughal eras. It carries the autograph of the Mughal Emperors and princes and some important manuscripts like Shah Nama, Padshah Nama and Timur Nama.

The library finds its origin in private collection of a bibliophile Mohammad Bakhsh and expanded by his son Khuda Bakhsh, who inherited 1,400 manuscripts and continued to add to the collection and eventually converted it into a private library by 1880. The library was opened to public upon its inauguration by Sir Charles Elliot, Governor of Bengal on 5 October 1891. In 1969 through a Federal Legislation, an Act of Parliament, namely 'Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library Act (1969), the Government of India declared Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library a centre of national importance and government took over the funding, maintenance and development of the library. Today it continues to attract scholars from all over the world.

Past directors of the library have been Dr. Abid Reza Bedar, who after remaining with the Raza Library, came as Director to the institution in 1972, and did some important work towards reviving the library along with his successor Habibur Rehman Chighani, at present the Director of the library is the Dr. Imtiaz Ahmad, since February, 2004. It is on its way to become the country's first library to computerize its hand written collection for universal dissemination.

Some of the notable manuscripts are Timur Nama (Khandan - Timuria), Shah Nama, Padshah Nama, Diwan-e-Hafiz and Safinatul Auliya, carrying the autograph of Mughal Emperors and princes and the book of Military Accounts of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Apart from it the library also has specimens of Mughal paintings, calligraphy and book decoration and Arabic and Urdu manuscripts, including a page of Quran written on deer skin.