Franklin Edgerton (July 24, 1885 – December 7, 1963) was an

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linguistic Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

scholar. He was Salisbury Professor of

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

and

Comparative Philology Comparative linguistics, or comparative-historical linguistics (formerly comparative philology) is a branch of historical linguistics that is concerned with comparing languages to establish their historical relatedness. Genetic relatedness i ...

Yale University Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...

(1926) and

visiting professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

Benares Hindu University Banaras Hindu University (BHU) IAST: kāśī hindū viśvavidyālaya International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: /kaːʃiː hɪnd̪uː ʋɪʃwəʋid̪jaːləj/), is a Collegiate university, collegiate, Central university (India), central, and Re ...

(1953–4). Between 1913 and 1926, he was the Professor of Sanskrit at the

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. He is well known for his exceptionally

literal translation Literal translation, direct translation or word-for-word translation, is a translation of a text done by translating each word separately, without looking at how the words are used together in a phrase or sentence. In Translation studies, trans ...

of the

Bhagavad Gita The Bhagavad Gita (; sa, श्रीमद्भगवद्गीता, lit=The Song by God, translit=śrīmadbhagavadgītā;), often referred to as the Gita (), is a 700- verse Hindu scripture that is part of the epic ''Mahabharata'' (c ...

which was published as volume 38-39 of the

Harvard Oriental Series The ''Harvard Oriental Series'' is a book series founded in 1891 by Charles Rockwell Lanman and Henry Clarke Warren. Lanman served as its inaugural editor (1891-1934) for the first 37 volumes. Other editors of the series include Walter Eugene Clark ...

in 1944. He also edited the parallel edition of four recensions of the ''Simhāsana Dvātrṃśika'' ("32 Tales of the Throne", also known as ''Vikrama Charita'': "Adventures of

Vikrama Vikramaditya (IAST: ') was a legendary king who has been featured in hundreds of traditional stories including those in ''Baital Pachisi'' and ''Singhasan Battisi''. Many describe him as ruler with his capital at Ujjain (Pataliputra or Pratis ...

"), and a reconstruction of the (lost) original Sanskrit text of the ''

Panchatantra The ''Panchatantra'' (IAST: Pañcatantra, ISO: Pañcatantra, sa, पञ्चतन्त्र, "Five Treatises") is an ancient Indian collection of interrelated animal fables in Sanskrit verse and prose, arranged within a frame story.

''.

Publications

* Edgerton, Franklin (1924). ''Panchatantra reconstructed''. 2 Volumes. New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society. , * Edgerton, Franklin (1926). ''Vikrama's Adventures''. Harvard Oriental Series, Volumes 26 & 27. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. , * Edgerton, Franklin (1931
The elephant-lore of the Hindus
Yale University Press. *Edgerton, Franklin (1944) The Bhagavad Gita, Translated and interpreted from the Sanskrit, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, Mass. * Edgerton, Franklin (1953). Buddhist hybrid sanskrit grammar and dictionary, Vol. 1
Grammar
New Haven: Yale University Press * Edgerton, Franklin (1953). Buddhist hybrid sanskrit grammar and dictionary, Vol. 2
Dictionary
New Haven: Yale University Press * Edgerton, Franklin (1965). The Beginnings of Indian Philosophy: Selections from the Rig Veda, Atharva Veda, Upanisads, and Mahabharata, Translated from the Sanskrit with an Introduction, notes, and glossarial index. Harvard University Press & George Allen & Unwin London

References

External links

Franklin Edgerton
at

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Franklin Edgerton
at

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Franklin Edgerton Papers (MS 1720).
Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library. 1885 births 1963 deaths Linguists from the United States Translators to Sanskrit Translators of the Bhagavad Gita Linguistic Society of America presidents 20th-century translators American Sanskrit scholars Yale University faculty University of Pennsylvania faculty 20th-century linguists {{US-linguist-stub