Ralph T. H. Griffith
English Sanskritist, translator of the Ramayana and Rigveda
- Born
- 1826, Corsley, Wiltshire
- Died
- 1906, Kotagiri, India
- Known for
- The Ramayan of Valmiki (1870–74); Hymns of the Rigveda (1889)
- Positions
- Boden Professor of Sanskrit, Oxford; principal of Benares College
English scholar who spent his life in India and made the first English verse translations of the Ramayana and the Vedas.
What is Ralph T. H. Griffith known for?
Ralph Thomas Hotchkin Griffith was an English Sanskrit scholar. Elected Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford in 1849, he went to India and became principal of Benares College. After retiring he settled at Kotagiri in the Nilgiri hills, where he continued translating until his death in 1906.
Griffith was among the first Europeans to translate the Vedas into English. He produced verse translations of the Ramayana of Valmiki (1870–74), the Rigveda (1889), the Samaveda, the Atharvaveda and the White Yajurveda. For the Rigveda he followed Max Muller's Sanskrit edition and the medieval commentator Sayana.
His translations are dated and sometimes leave out passages, but they are public domain and widely available online. They are often the source behind claims about flying chariots in Indian epics, so they are worth checking directly rather than relying on later paraphrases.
The site's summary of Ravana's Pushpaka flying car in the Ramayana cites Griffith's translation as the public-domain text.
Sources
- Internet Sacred Text Archive, 'The Ramayana of Valmiki', tr. Ralph T. H. GriffithPrimary text
- Wikipedia, 'Ralph T. H. Griffith'Reference
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