Sir Charles Wilkins (1749 – 13 May 1836) was an English
typographer
Typography is the art and technique of arranging type to make written language legible, readable and appealing when displayed. The arrangement of type involves selecting typefaces, point sizes, line lengths, line-spacing ( leading), an ...
and
Orientalist, and founding member of
The Asiatic Society
The Asiatic Society is a government of India organisation founded during the Company rule in India to enhance and further the cause of "Oriental research", in this case, research into India and the surrounding regions. It was founded by the p ...
. He is notable as the first translator of ''
Bhagavad Gita'' into English, He supervised
Panchanan Karmakar to create one of the first
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
typeface. In 1788, Wilkins was elected a member of the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
.
Biography
He was born at
Frome
Frome ( ) is a town and civil parish in eastern Somerset, England. The town is built on uneven high ground at the eastern end of the Mendip Hills, and centres on the River Frome. The town, about south of Bath, is the largest in the Mendip d ...
in Somerset in 1749. He trained as a printer. In 1770, he went to
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
as a printer and writer in the
East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...
's service.
His facility with language allowed him to quickly learn
Persian
Persian may refer to:
* People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language
** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples
** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...
and
Bengali
Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to:
*something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia
* Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region
* Bengali language, the language they speak
** Bengali alphabet, the w ...
. He created with his own hands the first type for printing Bengali.
[____________. (1837)]
"No. VIII, Sir Charles Wilkins, K.H.; D.C.L.; F.R.S.," ''The Annual biography and obituary for the year 1817–1837,'' pp. 69–72.
Google Books He published the first typeset book in the language, earning himself the name "the
Caxton Caxton may refer to:
Places
* Caxton Street, Brisbane, Australia
* Caxton, Cambridgeshire, a village in Cambridgeshire, UK
** Caxton Gibbet, a knoll near the village
* Caxton Hall, a historic building in London, UK
* Caxton Building, a historic ...
of India". 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 of Bengal.
Wilkins moved to
Varanasi
Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world.
*
*
*
* The city has a syncretic t ...
, where he studied Sanskrit under Kalinatha, a Brahmin pandit. At this period he began work on his translation of the
Mahabharata
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Ramayana, Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the s ...
, securing strong support for his activities from the governor of British India,
Warren Hastings
Warren Hastings (6 December 1732 – 22 August 1818) was a British colonial administrator, who served as the first Governor of the Presidency of Fort William (Bengal), the head of the Supreme Council of Bengal, and so the first Governor-Genera ...
. 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
upright=1.2, The Vedas are ancient Sanskrit texts of Hinduism. Above: A page from the '' Atharvaveda''.
The Vedas (, , ) are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the ...
.
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
Brahmi (; ; ISO: ''Brāhmī'') is a writing system of ancient South Asia. "Until the late nineteenth century, the script of the Aśokan (non-Kharosthi) inscriptions and its immediate derivatives was referred to by various names such as 'lath' o ...
were deciphered in 1785 by Charles Wilkins, who published an essentially correct translation of the
Gopika Cave Inscription
__NOTOC__
The Gopika Cave Inscription, also called the Nagarjuni Hill Cave Inscription II of Anantavarman or formerly the Gya inscription (referring to the nearby city of Gaya), is a 5th- or 6th-century CE Sanskrit inscription in Late Brahmi found ...
written by the
Maukhari
The Maukhari dynasty (Gupta script: , ''Mau-kha-ri'') was a post-Gupta dynasty who controlled the vast plains of Ganga-Yamuna for over six generations from their capital at Kannauj. They earlier served as vassals of the Guptas and later of Harsha ...
king Anantavarman.
Wilkins seems to have relied essentially on the similarities with later
Brahmic scripts
The Brahmic scripts, also known as Indic scripts, are a family of abugida writing systems. They are used throughout the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia and parts of East Asia. They are descended from the Brahmi script of ancient India ...
, such as the script of the
Pala period and early forms of
Devanagari
Devanagari ( ; , , Sanskrit pronunciation: ), also called Nagari (),Kathleen Kuiper (2010), The Culture of India, New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, , page 83 is a left-to-right abugida (a type of segmental Writing systems#Segmental syste ...
.
His translation of the Gita was itself soon translated into French (1787) and German (1802). It proved to be a major influence on
Romantic literature
Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...
and on European perception of Hindu philosophy.
William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...
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
Heetopades 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
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
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 1801 he became librarian to the East India Company, He was named examiner at
Haileybury when a college was established there in 1805. During these years he devoted himself to the creation of a font for Devanagari, the "divine script". In 1808 he published his ''Grammar of the Sanskrita Language''. King George IV gave him the badge of the
Royal Guelphic Order
The Royal Guelphic Order (german: Königliche Guelphen-Orden), sometimes referred to as the Hanoverian Guelphic Order, is a Hanoverian order of chivalry instituted on 28 April 1815 by the Prince Regent (later King George IV). It takes its name ...
and he was
knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
ed in recognition of his services to Oriental scholarship in 1833.
He died in London at the age of 86.
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.
He also published a catalogue of the manuscripts collected by Sir William Jones, who acknowledged his indebtedness to Wilkins.
Publications
*
*
*
*
See also
*
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...
—Wilkins was elected to membership in the Society in 1788.
Those signing that nomination letter were:
James Rennell
Major James Rennell, (3 December 1742 – 29 March 1830) was an English geographer, historian and a pioneer of oceanography. Rennell produced some of the first accurate maps of Bengal at one inch to five miles as well as accurate outlines of Ind ...
,
William Marsden,
Charles Blagden,
Alexander Dalrymple
Alexander Dalrymple Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (24 July 1737 – 19 June 1808) was a Scotland, Scottish geographer and the first Hydrographer of the Navy, Hydrographer of the British Admiralty. He was the main proponent of the theory ...
,
Samuel Harper,
George Staunton,
Thomas Astle
Thomas Astle FRS FRSE FSA (22 December 1735 – 1 December 1803) was an English antiquary and palaeographer. He became a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and the Royal Society.
Life
Astle was born on 22 December 1735 at Yoxall on the ...
.
Notes
References
* ____________. (1837)
''The Annual biography and obituary for the year 1817–1837.''London: Longmans.
*
Rost, Reinhold. (1865)
''Works by the late Horace Hayman Wilson'' London: Trubner.
External links
Charles Wilkinsat
Banglapedia
''Banglapedia:'' ''the'' ''National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh'' is the first Bangladeshi encyclopedia. It is available in print, CD-ROM format and online, in both Bengali and English. The print version comprises fourteen 500-page volumes. The f ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wilkins, Charles
1749 births
1836 deaths
People from Frome
English orientalists
English Indologists
Sanskrit–English translators
Translators of the Bhagavad Gita
Fellows of the Royal Society
English typographers and type designers