Charles Wilkins

Sir Charles Wilkins (* 1749, † May 13, 1836 ) was an English orientalist and typesetter, the Bhagavad Gita translated the first Western scholar and produced fonts for Devanagari script.

Life and work

After an apprenticeship as a printer Wilkins traveled to India in 1770 to work in the East India Company. Due to his high aptitude for foreign languages ​​he learned quickly Persian and Bengali and developed typefaces for letterpress printing in these languages.

In 1784 he helped to found William Jones, the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and went to Varanasi ( Benares ), to study under the guidance of an Indian scholar Sanskrit. During this time he began with an English translation of the Mahabharata. This was never completed, but some excerpts were later released, including the full text of the Bhagavad Gita ( 1785 ). This was in 1787 translated into French in 1802 into German and had a great influence on the literature of romance and the perception of Hindu philosophy in European intellectual world.

1786 Wilkins went back to England and one year later his translation of the story collection Hitopadesha out. He has held several senior positions in oriental libraries and developed fonts for Devanagari script. In 1808 he published his Grammar of the Sanskrita Language ( grammar of the Sanskrit language ). In 1833 he was knighted because of his services for the Oriental.

Writings

• Bhagavat - geeta, or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon. , C. Nourse, London in 1785.
• The Heetopades of Veeshnoo - Sarma, in a Series of Connected Fables, interspersed with moral, Prudential and Political Maxims. , 1787.
• Grammar of the Language Sanskrita. , Bulmer, and Black, Parry and Kingsbury, London 1808.
• Persian and Arabic Dictionary. A Vocabulary Persian, Arabic, and English; Abridged from the Quarto Edition of Richardson 's Dictionary. , 1810.