Edward Jewitt Robinson was a 19th-centuryProtestantmissionary toBritish India. He is best known as one of the earliest translators of theTirukkural intoEnglish.
Edward Jewitt Robinson was a missionary of theWesleyanMethodists inCeylon.[2]: 48 Robinson published a collection ofancient Tamil texts, including the Tirukkural, translated into English in 1873. The work was titledTamil Wisdom. Facilitating the evangelical works of the missionaries likeConstanzo Beschi, Ziegenbalg, and Percival, Robinson published an enlarged version of the work under the titleTales and Poems of South India in 1885. In the preface of his second work, he acknowledged the earlier translations byF. W. Ellis,W. H. Drew,Karl Graul andCharles E. Gover.[3]
Robinson, like other earlier missionaries, translated only thefirst (Aram) andsecond books (Porul) of the Kural text, translating 108 chapters (1080 couplets) in verse. He did not translate thethird book (Inbam). His English contemporaries greatly praised his verse translation, although native scholars of later years, such asT. P. Meenakshisundaram, had some reservations about its fidelity to the original.[3]
George Uglow Pope, in his preface toThe Sacred Kurral, felicitated Robinson thus:[4]
Since this work was sent to the press, I have seen a charming little volume entitled,Tales and Poems of South India, from the Tamil, by Rev. E. J. Robinson (T. Woolmer, 1885). Had I known of this earlier, I should have felt it less necessary to publish a translation.
Robinson publishedHindu Pastors: A Memorial inLondon in 1867, when he was with Late Wesleyan Missionary inCeylon.[citation needed] His other works include:
