Aditya Narayan Dhairyasheel Haksar is an Indian diplomat and Sanskrit language translator.
Born in Gwalior, he was educated at the Doon School, and the Universities of Allahabad and Oxford. Subsequently he had a long career in the Indian Foreign Service, serving as Indian high commissioner to Kenya and the Seychelles, minister to the United States, ambassador to Portugal and Yugoslavia, among other positions.
Haksar is noted for his body of translations from the Sanskrit, including the plays of Bhasa, Jatakamala of Arya Shura, Hitopadesa of Narayana, Tales of the Ten Princes by Dandin, the story collection Simhasana Dvatrimsika, the verse anthology Subhashitavali,[1] and Three Satires from Ancient Kashmir by Kshemendra. He has also compiled A Treasury of Sanskrit Poetry and retranslated the Kama Sutra.
Haksar has increasingly focused on the katha or narrative Sanskrit literature, the manuscript archive of which may amount to some 40,000 volumes.[2] This is in part because many generations of orientalist scholars had overlooked this rich tradition in favour of more ancient religious texts.[3] Haksar's katha translations include Shuka Saptati, and the first ever renditions into English of Madhavanala Katha and Samaya Matrika.