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Sir Charles Wilkins (1749 – 1836), was an English typographer and Orientalist, notable as the first translator of Bhagavad Gita into English, and as the creator of the first Devanagari typeface.

He was born at Frome in Somerset in 1749, and trained as a printer. In 1770 he went to India as a printer and writer in the East India Company's service. His facility with language allowed him to quickly learn Persian and Bengali. He was closely involved in the design of the first type for printing Bengali, publishing the first typeset book in the language, earning himself the name “the Caxton of India”.^[1] 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 hitherto indecipherable.

In 1784 Wilkins helped William Jones establish the Asiatic Society of Bengal, moving to Varanasi, where he studied Sanskrit under Kalinatha, a Brahmin pandit. At this period he began work on his translation of the Mahabarata, securing strong support for his activities from the governor of British India, Warren Hastings. 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 Kreeshna and Arjoon (London: Nourse, 1785).

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 and on European perception of Hindu philosophy. William Blake 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 in 1788. In 1801 he became librarian to the East India Company, and 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’’. In 1833 he was was knighted in recognition of his services to Oriental scholarship, and died in London at the age of 86.

In addition to his own translations and type designs, Wilkins published 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.

1. ^ Franklin, William, Introduction to The Bhǎgvǎt-Gēētā; The Hěětōpǎdēs of Veěshnǒǒ-Sǎrmā, [translated by] Charles Wilkins, London : Ganesha Pub., c2001. pp.xxiv-v