Juan Mascaró
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Juan Mascaró (December 8, 1897 – March 19, 1987) was a translator born in Majorca (an island of Spain) to a farming family. He is responsible for one of the most popular English translations of the Hindu text Bhagavad Gita, and of some of the major Upanishads. He also translated a key Buddhist text, Dhammapada, into English from Pāli. It was published in 1973. Though his native tongue was Catalan, he translated into English.
His interest in religion started from the age of 13 when he studied a book on occultism. After finding this spiritually misleading, he discovered an older English translation of the Bhagavad Gita. This inspired him to study Sanskrit in order to gain a better understanding of the text, as the available translation was quite poor.
He studied modern and oriental languages at Cambridge University and spent some time lecturing on the Spanish Mystics. He then went to Ceylon where he was Vice-Principal of Parameshvara College at Jaffna. Later, he became Professor of English at the University of Barcelona. He settled in England after the Spanish Civil War and there made his translations of the Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads, as well as returning to Cambridge University where he was supervisor of English and lectured on "Literary and Spiritual Values in the Authorized Version of the Bible".
He married Kathleen Ellis in 1951 and had a twin son and daughter. He died in 1987 in Comberton Cambridge.
He used a Spanish name (Juan) because his Catalan name (Joan) in English is a female name.
He was doctor honoris causa by the University of Balearic Islands.
[edit] References
- Mascaró, Juan, The Creation Of Faith. Bayeux Arts, 1999. ISBN 1896209297
