Charles Wilkins

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sir Charles Wilkins (1749?–1836), was an English Orientalist.

He was born at Frome in Somerset, probably in 1749, and in 1770 he went to India as a writer in the East India Company's service. Becoming attracted to the study of Oriental languages, particularly Sanskrit, he did important work towards facilitating such study by founding a printing press for these languages, taking a large personal share in the practical work of preparing the type. He returned to England in 1786, but continued his study of Sanskrit, and afterwards became librarian to the East India Company, and examiner at Haileybury when a college was established there in 1805. Wilkins was knighted in 1833 in recognition of his services to Oriental scholarship, and died in London.

He was a pioneer in Oriental studies, being the first Englishman to acquire mastery of Sanskrit and to make a thorough study of Indian inscriptions in that script. He compiled a Sanskrit grammar and published several translations from the sacred books of the East, besides preparing a new edition of John Wilkins Richardson's Persian and Arabic dictionary, and a catalogue of the manuscripts collected by Sir William Jones, who acknowledged his indebtedness to Wilkins, and whom Wilkins assisted in founding the Asiatic Society of Bengal. His most outstanding achievement in orientalist scholarship was the translation of the Bhagavadgita in 1785, which was to have a profound influence on western perceptions of "original" Indian culture, as opposed to the contemporary "degenerate" state of the country. Indirectly and via intermediaries like Ram Mohan Roy this perception also came to shape the self-image Indian intellectuals and nowadays also a broader public had and have of the cultural and religious foundations of their country.

Sir Charles Wilkins 是一位東方學家，在17491770之間，他去東印度公司服務。他是研究東方的先鋒，也是第一位習得梵文的人。並且研究各種經典。他編串了梵文文法並出版了各種東方文學翻譯並且被William Jones收集成冊,William Jones有恩於Charles Wilkins, Charles Wilkins也幫助William Jones成立Asiatic Society of Bengal,他的最大成就就是翻譯薄伽梵歌