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Charles Wilkins, The Heetopades of Veeshnoo-Sarma in a series of connected fables interspersed with moral, prudential, and political maxims; translated from an ancient manuscript in the Sanskreet language with explanatory notes, Bath: Printed by R. Cruttwell and sold by C. Nourse in the Strand, London and J. Marshall, Milsom Street, Bath, 1787

xx, 334 pages; contemporary tree calf boards, panelled in gilt, expertly rebacked, preserving the original spine with elaborate gilt tooling and a contrasting red morocco label titled Wilkins’s Heetopades.
21.5 x 13.5 cm

PROVENANCE: From Robert and Maria Travis's collection.

A MILESTONE OF SANSKRIT SCHOLARSHIP: CHARLES WILKINS AND THE HEETOOPADES, 1787

The Heetopades of Veeshnoo-Sarma represents one of the earliest sustained encounters between Sanskrit moral-philosophical literature and European intellectual culture in the late Enlightenment period. Attributed to Vi??u Sarma (rendered here as Veeshnoo-Sarma), the Hitopadesa (literally, “Beneficial Counsel”) is a didactic collection of interlinked animal fables and aphoristic verses designed to impart lessons on statecraft, morality, prudence, and political conduct. Structured around the themes of friendship, war, peace, and strategic alliances, the work draws upon an older didactic tradition represented by the Pañcatantra, itself one of the earliest narrative frameworks of applied political ethics.

Charles Wilkins (1749–1836), the translator of this edition, was a leading figure of the first generation of British Orientalists and one of the first Europeans to master Sanskrit systematically. As a senior East India Company official and later the inaugural Librarian of the East India Company Library, Wilkins played a central role in the translation and printing of foundational Hindu texts for European audiences. His earlier Bhagavad Gita (1785) was groundbreaking; his translation of the Hitopadesa in 1787 continued this pioneering philological and cultural work.

In his preface, Wilkins explains that this translation was made from a Sanskrit manuscript in his possession, and he supplements the text with detailed explanatory notes, glosses on political terminology, and clarifications of cultural references for non-Indian readers. This approach reflects the Enlightenment fascination with “Oriental wisdom,” whereby Indian literary and philosophical traditions were studied as sources of universal moral reasoning and compared to Western classical antecedents such as Aesop, La Fontaine, and the Greek gnomic tradition.

The Bath imprint of R. Cruttwell is significant; Cruttwell was noted for high-quality printing, and this edition’s typography and layout demonstrate care in presenting an “Eastern” text with scholarly apparatus for an English-speaking readership. Its distribution through prominent booksellers such as C. Nourse in the Strand, London, and J. Marshall in Bath underscores the intended audience of educated and literary circles beyond specialist Orientalist readerships.

This translation had a lasting impact. It facilitated the early assimilation of Indian political thought and narrative ethics into European literary culture, prefiguring the Romantic and Victorian fascination with Indian narrative forms and influencing subsequent translations and adaptations of Indian fables in Europe. In the longer history of comparative literature and colonial philology, the work stands as a tangible marker of the British Oriental Renaissance, where classical Indian texts were reinterpreted through European linguistic and moral frameworks, paving the way for the institutionalisation of Sanskrit studies in Britain.

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