Indian Hotel & Resort News

In 1786 Dr. Charles Wilkins was obliged by ill-health to return to England. He made the first direct rendering into English of a Sanskrit text: this was the 3rd century ad Vaishnava creed, the “Bhagavad-Gita”, London, 1785, and the Company paid for publication. He followed it with a translation of the “Hitopadesa”, Bath, 1787. At his house in Bath he worked on a fount of devanagari type. In the preface to his Sanskrit grammar, which he began printing in 1795, Wilkins writes that he “cut letters in steel, made matrices and moulds and cast from them a fount of type of the devanagari character all with my own hands”. Before the book was finished fire destroyed his workshop, though the punches were saved. Ten years later the Company persuaded him to resume work. His was the first fount of nagari type in Europe of which systematic use could be made. The Caslon foundry cast it in commercial quantities in English (14-point) size. It was used for Wilkins’s “Grammar of the Sanskrita language”, London, Bulmer, 1808; for Alexander Hamilton’s edition of the “Hitopadesa”, 1810; and also for Bopp’s “Nalus, Maha-Bharata episodium”, 1819. Although this type is now of only historical interest it was the sole fount available in Europe until 1821. Thus in Germany, as an alternative to buying it, Othmar Frank’s “Chresto-mathia Sanskrita …”, Munich, 1821/2, was one of several works printed by lithography. After setting the non-Indian portions of the text in roman type a pull was taken. The Sanskrit words called for were then entered by hand in spaces left on the printed sheet and the whole was transferred to stone.

In France, following the acquisition of the Pons collection of Sanskrit MSS in 1729, the Royal Library in Paris became Europe’s main centre of Sanskrit studies. It was here, in 1820, that August Wilhelm von Schlegel, professor of Sanskrit at the Bonn Academia Rhenana, commissioned a fount of nagari type. The result was Viberfs excellent 20-point size of 1821, first shown in a pamphlet “Specimen novae typographiae lndicae … litterarum figuras ad elegantissimorium codicum Bibliothecae Regiae Parisiensio exemplaria delineavit … Aug. Guil. Schlegel … Lutetiae Parisiorum ex officina Georgii Crapelet, MDCCCXXI”. Vibert cut the punches and J-B Lion Lettern cast the type. Schlegel gave Europe the first nagari type to remain in use until the present day, personally setting the type for his edition of the “Bhagavad-Gita”, Bonn, 1823. In 1825 Delafond of Paris cut a 16-point size.

At Bopp’s instigation the Akademie der Wissenschaft in Berlin acquired Schlegel’s matrices and equipment for its newly established oriental printing office in 1821. Here Bopp supervised the cutting of a smaller fount of nagari to be used for textual notes. They were used in Bopp’s edition of “Ardschuna’s Reise zu lndra’s Himmel …”, Berlin, 1824. In 1825 the Societe Asiatique in Paris bought the Schlegel and Bopp founts, using them in Antoine Chezy’s Sanskrit/French edition of the “Sakuntala”, Dondey-Dupre, 1830. By mid-century the founts were acquired by Brill of Leyden who issued a specimen “De Sanskrit Drukletters” in 1851. Thus Schlegel’s type spread through Europe. The Vibert and Delafond punches are now in the Cabinet des Poincons, q.v.