Sir Charles Wilkins (1749 – 13 May 1836) was an English typographer and scholar who co-founded The Asiatic Society. He is notable as the first translator of the Bhagavad Gita into English. He supervised Panchanan Karmakar to create oneFiona G. E. Ross (1999). 070071135X, Curzon. 070071135X
Birth and childhood
He was born at
Frome in Somerset in 1749.
He trained as a printer. In 1770, he went to
India as a printer and writer in the East India Company's service.
His facility with language allowed him to quickly learn
Persian language and
Bengali language. He created with his own hands the first type for printing Bengali.
He published the first typeset book in the language, earning himself the name "the
william Caxton of India".
[Franklin, William, Introduction to The Bhǎgvǎt-Gēētā; The Hěětōpǎdēs of Veěshnǒǒ-Sǎrmā, translated Charles Wilkins, London : Ganesha Pub., c2001. pp.xxiv-v] He also designed type for publications of books in Persian. In 1781, he was appointed as translator of Persian and Bengali to the Commissioner of Revenue and as superintendent of the company's press. He successfully translated a Royal inscription in
Kutila characters, which were thitherto indecipherable.
In 1784, Wilkins helped William Jones establish the Asiatic Society.
Work
Wilkins moved to
Varanasi (Varanasi), where he studied Sanskrit under Kalinatha, a Brahmin pandit. At this period he began work on his translation of the
Mahabharata, securing strong support for his activities from the governor of British India,
Warren Hastings. Though he never completed the translation, portions were later published. The most important was his version of the Gita, published in 1785 as 'Bhagvat-geeta', or
Dialogues of Krishna and Arjun (London: Nourse, 1785). In his preface Wilkins argued that the Gita was written to encourage a form of monotheist "unitarianism" and to draw Hinduism away from the polytheism he ascribed to the
Vedas.
He had a hobby to learn about other religions. He was also a scholar of Islam. He stayed in India for 16 years (1770–1786). He also made visits to holy shrines of other religions to learn about their customs. During a visit to Varanasi, he made a stop at Patna, and visited Patna Sahib Gurudwara, the birthplace of Guru Gobind Singh Ji. He wrote his account of this visit titled as 'Sikhs and their College at Patna'. He writes about Dasam Granth there and notes in this article.
Meanwhile, inscriptions of the 6th century CE in late
Brahmi script were deciphered in 1785 by Charles Wilkins, who published an essentially correct translation of the Gopika Cave Inscription written by the
Maukhari king Anantavarman.
Wilkins seems to have relied essentially on the similarities with later
Brahmic scripts, such as the script of the
Pala Empire and early forms of
Devanagari.
Translation to other languages
His translation of the Gita was itself soon translated into French (1787) and German (1802). It proved to be a major influence on
Romanticism and on European perception of Hindu philosophy.
William Blake later celebrated the publication in his picture
The Bramins, exhibited in 1809, which depicted Wilkins and Brahmin scholars working on the translation.
With Hastings' departure from India, Wilkins lost his main patron. He returned to England in 1786, where he married Elizabeth Keeble. In 1787 Wilkins followed the Gita with his translation of The Hitopadesha of Veeshnoo-Sarma, in a Series of Connected Fables, Interspersed with Moral, Prudential and Political Maxims (Bath: 1787). He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1788. In 1800, he was invited to take up the post of the first director of the India House Library, which became over time the world-famous 'India Office Library' (now British Library – Oriental Collections).
In addition to his own translations and type designs, Wilkins published a new edition of John Richardson's Persian and Arabic dictionary – A Vocabulary Persian, Arabic, and English; Abridged from the Quarto Edition of Richardson's Dictionary as Edited by Charles Wilkins, Esq., LL.D., F.R.S. – By David Hopkins, Esq., Assistant Surgeon on the Bengal Establishment in 1810.
Publications
Notes
External links
