DOCSLIB.ORG

British and European Sankritist Scholars and the Foundations of Indian Culture and Society

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
British and European Sankritist Scholars and the Foundations of Indian Culture and Society BRITISH AND EUROPEAN SANKRITIST SCHOLARS AND THE FOUNDATIONS OF INDIAN CULTURE AND SOCIETY Prof. Dr. P.Jagadeesan Abstract: During the period of British rule Civilization in the 1920s, the Aryan racial in India and especially under the Governorship theory continued as an extension of Indo- of Warren Hastings, a new trend emerged European civilization. Latter-day scholars among linguistic scholars of England, to study like Leon Poliakov have questioned such the Oriental languages and their ethnology. appropriations and have dwelt on the These new Orientalist scholars like Sir independent achievements of pre-Aryan William Jones, H.H. Wilson, Max Mueller and India and of post-Aryan, Dravidian India. others used their studies of Sanskrit works to romanticize about the Indian past by glorifying Warren Hastings became Governor of Bengal the Aryan civilization as an extension of the in early 1772. As second in council at Madras, he Indo-European. had shown skill, courage, and integrity and such good conduct earned him promotion to Bengal. However, such theories that Sanskrit language was superior, soon became unacceptable to Though the consolidation of the company’s other scholars like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and rule in Bengal looked as his apparent task, Sir Henry Maine - both Indian and Western. buta far greater one `was the preservation of They were of the view that the efforts spent on British possessions from deadly danger without Sanskrit studies is of no benefit to the common and bitter schism within. Hence, he found the people, as only Brahmin students were entitled Company a commercial corporation turned to and educated in it. revenue farmer, he left it one of the great powers of Indian sub-continent.` Yet, such studies flourished under the British rule only because of their objective Hastings was guided by the instructions to foster a master idea of the dark-skinned given by the Board of Directors which savage Indian vs. the fair-skinned civilized specifically included that, “We now arm European. Even after the discovery of you with full powers to make complete the pre-Vedic, non-Aryan, Indus Valley reformation”.1 58 Fó£MìŠ ªð£N™ Warren Hastings’s governorship was also qualified themselves in Sanskrit and they classify significant for other features than those themselves as the New Orientalists. of politics and war. The atmosphere of the Mughal cultural traditions under which he lived Sir William Jones, a learned linguist, already for long had kindled oriental interest in him a Persian and Arabic Scholar came to join as a and made him acquire oriental knowledge and judge of the Supreme Court at Calcutta. he learned Persian, the diplomatic language and Bengali, the local language along with a Warren Hastings encouraged his interest in working knowledge of Urdu and with some Sanskrit and supported the foundation of the Arabic. Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784. On the refusal of Warren Hastings to accept the office of the Hence, in that line of interest, ‘he President, Sir William Jones had accepted the encouraged Sanskrit studies and patronized office of the President of the Asiatic Society. By William Wilkins in his attempt to translate his patronage of Oriental learning particularly Bagavat-Gita and encouraged Halhed in his of the Sanskrit works, Aryan wisdom and art and compilation of Hindu law based on a Persian by his continuance of the traditional methods of translation from the Sanskrit compiled by administration, Hastings placed himself in the ten pundits.2 line of the great Indian monarchs. During this period a new awareness and In his first discourse as president of the Asiatic interest emerged among some linguistic Society William Jones observed,” It gave me an scholars of England on the study of Oriental inexpressible pleasure to find myself in the midst languages and their wisdom. This attitude of so noble an amphitheatre which has ever been had already developed in them with regard esteemed the nurse of sciences, the inventress to Persia and other middle-easterncountries of delightful and useful arts the scene of glorious with whom the contacts of the western nations actions, fertile in the productions of human genius were already in existence for centuries of abounding in natural wonders and infinitely time. These western scholars were called diversified in the forms of religion and government, themselves as Orientalists. in the laws, manners, customs and languages, as well as in the features and complexions of men”3 These Orientalists also had some knowledge about the cultures and wisdom of the Aryan Though a group of distinguished European Indian Society through Persian translations of scholar- administrators have contributed for the a few Sanskrit works belong to scholars of the flourishing of this society, but the most famous Muslim rule of India. among them was Dr.John Wilson a scholar of distinction in Sanskrit and Zend. The establishment of the empire in India in the 18th century and the initiatives taken by the He explained the object of the Society’s government towards a transition of governance of research as the physical aspects and produce reformation had also thrown open India, one of the of the country, the monuments and records of oldest land of the human race with all its intellectual its history, the intellectual, moral and economic and cultural antiquities to the Orientalists. condition of its tribes, its languages in respect of origin, structure and style, its religions in This new development provided a direct principle and practice and its civil and criminal access to the Aryan culture for which they jurisprudence.4 Dravida Pozhil 59 ‘British Indomania was evolved not born. The new ethnology was guided by the To persuade this idea, it become necessary groupings of languages. Hence, it was race to find out evidences and circumstances that appeared, increasingly, to be the object on which the British enthusiasm for India of the ethnology of Indo-Europeans: “For the began in the 1760’s shortly after the battle new theory of language has unquestionably of Plassy and continuing till the early produced a new theory of Race” (Maine decades of 19th Century. British Indomania 1875:9) The people who were the first was above all a deliberately built-up speakers of languages of the Indo-European structure by the scholars of the Asiatic language family had long since come to be Society of Bengal. called, by a name taken from Sanskrit Arya (arya) or Aryan”6 On the acquaintance of the British and European Scholars with Sanskrit of the Indian ‘This Indo-European or Aryan Concept with Aryan a new theory of language arose called the certain formal properties of its own have been Indo-European language family. This includes, more or less stable from its inception in the roughly, the Sanskrit and some languages in eighteenth century’. North India the Sinhala by Sri Lanka, Persian and the European languages. Hence “the invention of the modern concept of the Aryan” dates back to the nineteenth According to Sir Henry Sumner Maine, century and is part of what Nancy Stepan refers Europeans began to study Sanskrit in the to as `Race in Science`, which was so central to eighteenth century and the bases considered European perceptions of the human population for common nationality prior to this were quite and of the cultures of others. References to the different. arya in the Iranian Avesta and the Indian Vedas surfaced through comparative philology and In the beginning of the British Indian empire provided a ready label. the British wished to have some intimate knowledge about the Indians, Trautmann argues that British Sanskritists supplied the theoretical structures which By that they were aiming to know who are dominated and directed the construction of the Indians, their place among the nations the ethnologies of India” Thus two types of the world and how they are related to the of Orientalism need to be problematized British. These enquiries that had belonged to and investigated: the knowledge produced the realm of universal history which is based by European scholars and the European on ethnology. representation of the Orient.7 Hence, ‘a new Orientalism came into being The new Orientalist scholars like Sir that was centered on India and, for few decades William Jones, HenryColebrooke, H.H. Wilson the production of it was practically a monopoly and others used their studies of Sanskrit of the scholars of British-Indian Calcutta before works and development of knowledge it was established in Europe.5 about India (The Aryavartha) to romanticize the Indian past by glorifying the Aryan Consequently India, increasingly, became civilization along with their cultural wisdom a source for British ethnological discourse and and social institutions with excitement and Britain became the centre for its debates. admiration. 60 Fó£MìŠ ªð£N™ “The European perception of India was also their lives by acquiring the niceties of Sanskrit colored by the empathy of Max Muller for Vedic grammar, speculative philosophy of Vedanta, Sanskrit, culture, but more importantly, by his obsolete interpretations of Vedic passage in contribution to the creations of the notion of an Mimamsa, and the subtleties of the Nyaya Aryan race as drawn from Sanskrit texts. Sastra. The Rig Veda was always utilized and If it had been intended to keep the British elaborately depended on by these scholars nation in ignorance of real knowledge, the to find support for their theory of the racial Baconian philosophy would not have been interpretation of Indian civilization. allowed to displace the system of the schoolmen which was the best calculated to perpetuate “The origins of Indian history were said to ignorance. In the same manner the Sanskrit lie in the conquest of the dasas by the aryas, system of education would be the best calculated who thus introduced their ‘superior’ language, to keep this country in darkness.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Upanishads, Vol I
    The Upanishads, Vol I Translated by F. Max Müller The Upanishads, Vol I Table of Contents The Upanishads, Vol I........................................................................................................................................1 Translated by F. Max Müller...................................................................................................................1 PREFACE................................................................................................................................................7 PROGRAM OF A TRANSLATION...............................................................................................................19 THE SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST........................................................................................................20 TRANSLITERATION OF ORIENTAL ALPHABETS,..............................................................................25 INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................26 POSITION OF THE UPANISHADS IN VEDIC LITERATURE.......................................................30 DIFFERENT CLASSES OF UPANISHADS.......................................................................................31 CRITICAL TREATMENT OF THE TEXT OF THE UPANISHADS................................................33 MEANING OF THE WORD UPANISHAD........................................................................................38 WORKS ON THE UPANISHADS....................................................................................................................41
    [Show full text]
  • Aesthetics, Subjectivity, and Classical Sanskrit Women Poets
    Voices from the Margins: Aesthetics, Subjectivity, and Classical Sanskrit Women Poets by Kathryn Marie Sloane Geddes B.A., The University of British Columbia, 2016 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Asian Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) August 2018 © Kathryn Marie Sloane Geddes 2018 The following individuals certify that they have read, and recommend to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies for acceptance, a thesis/dissertation entitled: Voices from the Margins: Aesthetics, Subjectivity, and Classical Sanskrit Women Poets submitted by Kathryn Marie Sloane Geddes in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Asian Studies Examining Committee: Adheesh Sathaye, Asian Studies Supervisor Thomas Hunter, Asian Studies Supervisory Committee Member Anne Murphy, Asian Studies Supervisory Committee Member Additional Examiner ii Abstract In this thesis, I discuss classical Sanskrit women poets and propose an alternative reading of two specific women’s works as a way to complicate current readings of Classical Sanskrit women’s poetry. I begin by situating my work in current scholarship on Classical Sanskrit women poets which discusses women’s works collectively and sees women’s work as writing with alternative literary aesthetics. Through a close reading of two women poets (c. 400 CE-900 CE) who are often linked, I will show how these women were both writing for a courtly, educated audience and argue that they have different authorial voices. In my analysis, I pay close attention to subjectivity and style, employing the frameworks of Sanskrit aesthetic theory and Classical Sanskrit literary conventions in my close readings.
    [Show full text]
  • History of Early Sanskrit Scholars
    HISTORY OF EARLY SANSKRIT SCHOLARS Scientific study of India/Hinduism and Sanskrit language started at the end of the eighteen-century. Sir William Jones who is called as father of Indology started Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784 with the help of his colleagues Charles Wilkins (1749-1836, Alexander Hamilton (1762-1824) and Colebrook ( ) These Scholars translated many Sanskrit texts into English which in tern got translated to other European languages which created tremendous interest in Sanskrit learning and Hinduism. Many European universities started Sanskrit chairs and study of Hinduism. 1. France was ahead of England. Alexander Hamilton started teaching Sanskrit at the Ecole des Langues Orientales Vivantes at Paris in 1803. At famous Paris University first Sanskrit Chair was established at college de France in 1814. During the same period Eugene Burnouf (1801-1852) delivered his famous lectures on Vedas. 2. In Germany Sanskrit Chair was established in 1816. In 1816 Franz Bopp forwarded the theory of common ancestry for Sanskrit, Greek and Latin. This study of his gave birth to a new branch in Philology called comparative philology. Many German scholars of repute emerged in 19 th century that no other country in Europe could match. 3. In England Sanskrit was first taught at the training college of East India Company at Hertford and the first chair of Sanskrit was started much latter at Oxford named after Boden. H.H.Wilson was the firs Boden professor. Later Chairs were created at London,Cambridge and Edinburgh. 4. In Holland Sanskrit learning started late in 1865 at state University of Leiden and great Sanskrit scholar Hendrik Kern was appointed as first professor of Sanskrit.
    [Show full text]
  • E-Teaching Capsule for Srimad- Bhagavad-Gita by Preeti Patel
    E-Teaching Capsule for Srimad- Bhagavad-Gita by Preeti Patel Submission date: 24-Oct-2018 12:04PM (UTC+0530) Submission ID: 1025838127 File name: Preeti_chapters_library.pdf (6.29M) Word count: 39661 Character count: 206277 E-Teaching Capsule for Śrīmad-Bhagavad-Gītā A dissertation submitted to the University of Hyderabad for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sanskrit Studies by Patel Preeti Khimji 10HSPH01 Department of Sanskrit Studies School of Humanities University of Hyderabad Hyderabad 2018 E-Teaching Capsule for Śrīmad-Bhagavad-Gītā A dissertation submitted to the University of Hyderabad for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Sanskrit Studies by Patel Preeti Khimji 10HSPH01 under the guidance of Prof. Amba Kulkarni Professor, Department of Sanskrit Studies Department of Sanskrit Studies School of Humanities University of Hyderabad Hyderabad 2018 Declaration I, Patel Preeti Khimji, hereby declare that the work embodied in this dissertation en- titled “E-Teaching Capsule for Śrīmad-Bhagavad-Gītā” is carried out by me under the supervision of Prof. Amba P. Kulkarni, Professor, Department of Sanskrit Studies, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad and has not been submitted for any degree in part or in full to this university or any other university. I hereby agree that my thesis can be deposited in Shodhganga/INFLIBNET. A report on plagiarism statistics from the University Librarian is enclosed. Patel Preeti Khimji 10HSPH01 Date: Place: Hyderabad Signature of the Supervisor Certificate This is to certify that the thesis entitled E-Teaching Capsule for Śrīmad-Bhagavad- Gītā Submitted by Patel Preeti Khimji bearing registration number 10HSPH01 in par- tial fulfilment of the requirements for the award of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Humanities is a bonafide work carried out by her under my supervision and guid- ance.
    [Show full text]
  • The Death of Sanskrit*
    The Death of Sanskrit* SHELDON POLLOCK University of Chicago “Toutes les civilisations sont mortelles” (Paul Valéry) In the age of Hindu identity politics (Hindutva) inaugurated in the 1990s by the ascendancy of the Indian People’s Party (Bharatiya Janata Party) and its ideo- logical auxiliary, the World Hindu Council (Vishwa Hindu Parishad), Indian cultural and religious nationalism has been promulgating ever more distorted images of India’s past. Few things are as central to this revisionism as Sanskrit, the dominant culture language of precolonial southern Asia outside the Per- sianate order. Hindutva propagandists have sought to show, for example, that Sanskrit was indigenous to India, and they purport to decipher Indus Valley seals to prove its presence two millennia before it actually came into existence. In a farcical repetition of Romantic myths of primevality, Sanskrit is consid- ered—according to the characteristic hyperbole of the VHP—the source and sole preserver of world culture. The state’s anxiety both about Sanskrit’s role in shaping the historical identity of the Hindu nation and about its contempo- rary vitality has manifested itself in substantial new funding for Sanskrit edu- cation, and in the declaration of 1999–2000 as the “Year of Sanskrit,” with plans for conversation camps, debate and essay competitions, drama festivals, and the like.1 This anxiety has a longer and rather melancholy history in independent In- dia, far antedating the rise of the BJP. Sanskrit was introduced into the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India (1949) as a recognized language of the new State of India, ensuring it all the benefits accorded the other fourteen (now seventeen) spoken languages listed.
    [Show full text]
  • Department of Sanskrit General
    1 SREE SANKARACHARYA UNIVERSITY OF SANSKRIT, KALADY RESRUCTURED SYLLABI FOR B.A PROGRAMME IN SANSKRIT GENERAL 2015 ONWARDS Faculty of Sanskrit Literature Department of Sanskrit General 2 RESRUCTURED SYLLABI FOR B.A PROGRAMME IN SANSKRIT GENERAL 2015 ONWARDS Semester I Sl. Course Title of the course No. of Hour per No. Code Credits week 1. I.A.101.En. Common English I 4 5 2. I.A.102.En. Common English II 3 4 3. I.A.107.Sg Additional Language 4 4 I- Prose, Poetry and Drama 4. I.B.111.Sg Fundamentals of 3 4 Sanskrit Language 5. I.C.124.Sg A Survey of Classical 3 4 Sanskrit Literature 6. I.C.125.Sg Modern 3 4 Sanskrit Literature 3 Semester II Sl. Course Code Title of the course No. of Hour per No. Credits week 1. II.A.103.En. Common English III 4 5 2. II.A.104.En. Common English IV 3 4 3. II.A.108.Sg Additional Language II- 4 4 Communication Skills in Sanskrit 4. II.B.112.Sg Ancient Indian Metanarrative - 3 4 Bhāsa & Kālidāsa 5. II.C.126.Sg Methodology of Sanskrit 3 4 Learning - Tantrayukti 6. II.C.127.Sg Vṛtta and Alaṅkāra 3 4 Semester III Sl. Course Title of the course No. of Hour per No. Code Credits week 1. III.A.105.En. Common English V 4 5 2. III.A.109.Sg Additional Language III – 4 5 Perennial poetry: Kālidāsa and O.N.V.Kurup 3. III.B.113.Sg Literary appreciation: Indian 4 5 perspectives 4.
    [Show full text]
  • Kalki's Avatars
    KALKI’S AVATARS: WRITING NATION, HISTORY, REGION, AND CULTURE IN THE TAMIL PUBLIC SPHERE DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Akhila Ramnarayan. M.A. ****** The Ohio State University 2006 Approved by Dissertation Committee: Professor Chadwick Allen, Adviser Adviser Professor Debra Moddelmog, Adviser Professor James Phelan Adviser English Graduate Program ABSTRACT Challenging the English-only bias in postcolonial theory and literary criticism, this dissertation investigates the role of the twentieth-century Tamil historical romance in the formation of Indian and Tamil identity in the colonial period. I argue that Tamil Indian writer-nationalist Kalki Ra. Krsnamurti’s (1899-1954) 1944 Civakamiyin Capatam (Civakami’s Vow)—chronicling the ill-fated wartime romance of Pallava king Narasimhavarman (630-668 CE) and fictional court dancer Civakami against the backdrop of the seventh-century Pallava-Chalukya wars—exemplifies a distinct genre of interventionist literature in the Indian subcontinent. In Kalki’s hands, the vernacular novel became a means by which to infiltrate the colonial imaginary and, at the same time, to envision a Tamil India untainted by colonial presence. Charting the generic transformation of the historical romance in the Tamil instance, my study provides 1) a refutation of the inflationary and overweening claims made in postcolonial studies about South Asian nationalism, 2) a questioning of naïve binaries such as local and global, cosmopolitan and vernacular, universal and particular, traditional and modern, in examining the colonial/postcolonial transaction, and 3) a case for a less grandiose and more carefully historicized account of bourgeois nationalism than has previously been provided by postcolonial critics, accounting for its complicities with ii and resistances to discourses of nation, region, caste, and gender in the late colonial context.
    [Show full text]
  • The Bhāva Process: an Approach to Understanding the Process of Characterization in the Nāṭyaśāstra a Dissertation Submit
    THE BHĀVA PROCESS: AN APPROACH TO UNDERSTANDING THE PROCESS OF CHARACTERIZATION IN THE NĀṬYAŚĀSTRA A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE DIVISION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I AT MĀNOA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THEATRE May 2019 By Joshua M. Leukhardt Dissertation Committee: Kirstin Pauka, Chairperson Julie Iezzi Paul Mitri Jesse Knutson Ramdas Lamb Keywords: Nāṭyaśāstra, rasa, bhāva, nāṭyarasa, sthāyibhāva, Bhāva Process ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the many people who enabled me to complete this dissertation. In Hawai‘i, I want to express my gratitude to my committee members for their valuable input, instruction, and words of encouragement. From way in my dusty past, I wish to thank my fellow graduate student kula (both in the Melanesian and Sanskrit meanings): Kulthida, Trinh, and M. A., who were there at the start to provide me with encouragement and camaraderie. I am forever indebted to my writing coach and syntax liberator Janna Taylor who not only inspired me but figured out a way to transform the things in my brain into decipherable, comprehensible, and readable text. She made the completion of this dissertation possible. A huge thank you to Joe. Without his support and encouragement, I would still be in the roundabout and would have never finished. Thanks to my parents for their love and instilling in me a love of ancient cultures and civilizations (from my Mom), and an inquisitive miNdset (from my Dad). These traits are now part of my dharma. Finally, I would like to thank my family Leslie, Sasha, Clover, Oscar, and Griffin for their patience, support, and sacrifice during this long endeavor.
    [Show full text]
  • Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History
    German Romantic Nationalism and Indian Cultural Tradition A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History By Alexei Vladimirovich Pimenov, M.A. Washington, DC November 18, 2015 Copyright 2015 by Alexei Vladimirovich Pimenov All Rights Reserved ii Alexei Vladimirovich Pimenov, M.A. Thesis Advisor: Catherine Evtuhov, Ph.D. Abstract This Dissertation examines the German Romantic fascination with India, the country thought by many German Romantics to be the original home of the Urvolk, considered by these thinkers to be the direct ancestors of the German people themselves. In analyzing this German Romantic self-representation through India within the context of the Romantic critique of European modernity, the Dissertation considers this phenomenon as a case of the Romantic re-integration project. The Dissertation juxtaposes four figures – Friedrich Schlegel, Otmar Frank, Joseph Goerres, and Arthur Schopenhauer – who are particularly representative of those German Romantic thinkers who were influenced by Indian culture and who applied the Indian models to their interpretations of world history. These interpretations were rooted in the models developed by the missionaries and the Enlightenment thinkers who looked for the original monotheism outside the biblical tradition. The Romantics, however, highlighted not only the religious but also the national dimension of the connection between the original home of the Urvolk and its descendants in the modern German-speaking realm. In tracing the Urvolk ’s migration from India to the West, Friedrich Schlegel used as his explanatory model the Brahmanic narrative of the degenerated warriors becoming barbarians due to their failure to observe the dharma.
    [Show full text]
  • Discovery of Sanskrit by Western Scholars
    Discovery of Sanskrit by Western Scholars The great (ironic) discovery by the Western Scholars in the late eighteenth-century that Sanskrit is related to Latin, Greek, Germanic, and Celtic languages revolutionized the European linguistics studies. Sir William Jones, a British judge and scholar working in India, summed up the nature and implications of the findings in his 1786 address to the Royal Asiatic Society: ‘…. The Sanscrit language, whatever be its antiquity, is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than Greek, more copious [having more cases] than the Latin, and more refined than either, yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of the verbs and in the forms of the grammar, than could possibly have been produced by accident; so strong indeed, that no philosopher could have examined them all three, without believing them to have sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists: there is a similar reason …. for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick …. had the same origin with the Sanscrit; and the old Persian might be added to the same family… This discovery led to several decades of hard and intensive philological work in the area of historical- comparative. This also paved the ways for the developments in historical linguistics during the nineteenth century. By studying sound correspondences from an ever- increasing number of languages, linguists eventually ascertained that most of the languages from Europe, Persian and the northern part of India belong to a single family, which has come to be known as Indo- European languages. EARLY SANSKRIT INTEREST IN EUROPE: We know that India has attracted the Western world since antiquity.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction to Charles Wilkin's Bhagavad Gita
    INTRODUCTION [To South Asia Press Edition of the First English Translation (in 1785) of The Bhagavad Gita by Charles Wilkins, New Delhi, 2018. ISBN 13:978-81-936104-3-5; ISBN 10:8193610431, Pp.xxix-liii] M V Nadkarni (The roman figures in brackets refer to those in the published book.) [p. xxix >] The publication of the first direct translation by Sir Charles Wilkins (1750-1833) of the Bhagavad-Gita from the original Sanskrit into English in 1785 in London was a landmark in its ‘career’. It was also a landmark in the history of cultural interactions between the East and the West and left a significant impact as we shall just see. The interest in republishing this book after nearly two-and-half centuries by the South Asia Press owes as much to the historical significance of this translation - it was a trend-setter, as to the accelerating interest in and influence of the Gita itself. Wilkins’ translation of the Gita, however, was not an isolated event. It needs to be seen in a proper perspective. The first part of the Introduction here presents this perspective or the background to it, which includes the significance of the Gita itself which attracted the Western mind and made it relevant for the modern times as well. The second part of the Introduction deals with the historical significance and impact of the publication of Wilkins’ translation. The third and final part presents some comments on the text of his translation, and states the principle in terms of which this republication was designed.
    [Show full text]
  • Science and Scientific Elements in Sanskrit © 2017 IJSR Received: 28-03-2017 Dr
    International Journal of Sanskrit Research 2017; 3(3): 345-346 International Journal of Sanskrit Research2015; 1(3):07-12 ISSN: 2394-7519 IJSR 2017; 3(3): 345-346 Science and Scientific Elements in Sanskrit © 2017 IJSR www.anantaajournal.com Received: 28-03-2017 Dr. Tarun Kumar Sharma Accepted: 29-04-2017 Dr. Tarun Kumar Sharma Introduction Sr. Lecturer, Department of One can be proud of the fact that sanskrit is not only the language, but a collection of Sanskrit, Atarra P.G. College, knowledge, a vast treasure house of various disciplines like linguistics, Mathmetics, Astrology, Atarra (Banda), Uttar Pradesh, Philosphy, Religion, History, Geography, Art, Archeology, Architecture and Natural Science India like Chemistry, Biology, Botany, Medical Science, Engineering, Agriculture, Horticulture, Cosmology, Ecology, Physics, and Computer Science etc. Vadic literature, the oldest resource of Indian wisdom undoubtly possessed seed of scientific knowledge. The Science of Geometry and Astronomy developed in the early vedic age for the purpose of the construction of vedic alters and for performing vedic sacrifice. After the study of Sanskrit literature and vedas we find several scientific Elements in all the Sanskrit branches. Sanskrit is also world best scientific and suitable language for computer. Elements of Medical Science There are several Medical Scientific elements can be seen in Vedic Sanskrit. Indian medical science Ayurveda contains vast sphere of Knowledge about human body. Work like pjd lafgrk] lqJqr lafgrk] ek/ko funku Contain matters on diognosis cure of all types of ailments. Yoga system due to its Scientific approach in becoming the universal system for healthy body. Zoological Elements We find that Sanskrit literature contains sufficient scientific elements in Zoology.
    [Show full text]