Manmatha Nath Dutt (

Pabna Pabna () is a city of Pabna District, Bangladesh and the administrative capital of the eponymous Pabna District. It is on the north bank of the Padma River and has a population of about . Etymology * According to the historian Radharaman Saha ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...

1855–1912) was a prolific

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''trans ...

of ancient

Hindu Hindus (; ; also known as Sanātanīs) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism, also known by its endonym Sanātana Dharma. Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pp. 35–37 Historically, the term has also be ...

texts to English. He has translated many ancient

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

texts to English. To this day, his translations remain one of the few or sometimes the only English versions of some

Hindu scripture Hindu texts or Hindu scriptures are manuscripts and voluminous historical literature which are related to any of the diverse traditions within Hinduism. Some of the major Hindu texts include the Vedas, the Upanishads, and the Itihasa. Scholars ...

. He translated the

Valmiki Ramayana The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...

(1892–1894),

Markandeya Purana The ''Markandeya Purana'' (; IAST: ) is a Sanskrit text of Hinduism, and one of the eighteen major Puranas. The text's title Markandeya refers to a sage in Sanatana Dharma, who is the central character in two legends, one linked to Shiva and oth ...

(1896),

Bhagavata Purana The ''Bhagavata Purana'' (; ), also known as the ''Srimad Bhagavatam (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam)'', ''Srimad Bhagavata Mahapurana'' () or simply ''Bhagavata (Bhāgavata)'', is one of Hinduism's eighteen major Puranas (''Mahapuranas'') and one ...

(1896),

Vishnu Purana The Vishnu Purana () is one of the eighteen Mahapuranas, a genre of ancient and medieval texts of Hinduism. It is an important Pancharatra text in the Vaishnavism literature corpus. The manuscripts of ''Vishnu Purana'' have survived into ...

(1896),

Harivaṃśa The ''Harivamsa'' (, ) is an important work of Sanskrit literature, containing 16,374 shlokas, mostly in the ''anustubh'' Metre (poetry), metre. The text is also known as the ''Harivamsa Purana.'' This text is believed to be a ''khila'' (ap ...

(1897), Mahabharata (1895–1905), Mahanirvana Tantra (1900), several ''

samhitas Samhita ( IAST: ''Saṃhitā'') literally means "put together, joined, union", a "collection", and "a methodical, rule-based combination of text or verses".

'' and '' dharmashastra'' texts (1906, 1908–09),

Garuda Purana The Sanskrit text ''Garuda Purana'' () is one of 18 Mahapurana (Hinduism), Mahapuranas in Hinduism. The ''Garuda Purana'' was likely composed in the first millennium CE, with significant expansions and revisions occurring over several centuries ...

(1908) and Rig Veda Samhita (1906–1912) which remained incomplete. He has also translated the Kamandakiya Nitisara (1896) which is an ancient book authored by Kamandhaka based on Kautilya's Artha Shastra. Apart from his translations of sacred and secular texts on Sanatana and

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

, he has also authored some books in English. Among them are his biography of

Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...

(1901), and Gleanings from Indian classics (1893) which is a collection of famous stories and anecdotes from classical Sanskrit literature. In the introduction to this book, Manmatha Nath Dutt mentions that it was his attempt to clear western misconception about Hindu religion, literature, and philosophy.

Biography

Manmatha Nath Dutt was born into a

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

family at

Bengal Presidency The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William in Bengal until 1937, later the Bengal Province, was the largest of all three presidencies of British India during Company rule in India, Company rule and later a Provinces o ...

in British India. He received his formal education in Calcutta University where he earned a MA in English and thereafter was awarded the title of Shastri by the Sanskrit College in Calcutta. He became the rector of the Keshub Academy an institute named after

Keshub Chandra Sen Keshub Chandra Sen (; also spelled Keshab Chunder Sen; 19 November 1838 – 8 January 1884) was an Indian philosopher and social reformer who attempted to incorporate Christian theology within the framework of Hindu thought. Born a Hindu i ...

. He did most of his translation work while he was a rector at Keshub Academy. He became the member of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1894. Manmatha Nath Dutt was the maternal grandfather of the eminent Indian freedom fighter Sucheta Kriplani. A road in North Kolkata (Manmatha Dutt Road) is named after him.

References

1855 births 1912 deaths {{Translator-stub