The Sánkhya Káriká,

Krishna in early english translation

The first English translation of the Samkhyakarika by Ishvara Krishna (350 CE) and its most important commentary, the Bháshya, by Gaudapada. Alongside the translation is a full Sanskrit rendition of the original text.

Henry Thomas Colebrooke (1765-1837) was 'the first great Sanskrit scholar in Europe'. After eleven years of residence in India, Colebrooke began the study of the Sanskrit language. He was given the translation of the major Digest of Hindu Laws left unfinished by Sir William Jones. During his residence at Calcutta he wrote his Sanskrit Grammar (1805), some papers on the religious ceremonies of the Hindus, and his Essay on the Vedas
(1805), for many years the standard work in English on the subject.

Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860) was the first Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford University, the first person to translate the Rigveda into English and the first to write a Sanskrit–English Dictionary (1819). He was secretary to the Asiatic Society of Bengal and an original member of the Royal Asiatic Society, of which he was director from 1837 until his death.

From the library of Louis Casartelli (1852-1925), fourth Roman-Catholic Bishop of Salford (1903-1925), scholar and polyglot, elected to The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

First English editions of each text; folio (280 x 225 mm); printed in English and Sanskrit, engraved title-page with vignette, last few leaves lightly spotted, bookplate and library stamp of Louis Casartelli, booksellers ticket to pastedown; nineteenth-century cloth by Palmer Howe & Co of Manchester, their stamp to endpaper; xiv, 194, [56], [4]pp.