W. Douglas P. Hill

William Douglas Penneck Hill (1884 – 9 April 1962) was a British Indologist, a scholar of King's College, Cambridge, former assistant master at Eton and principal of Jay Narayan's High School Benares.[1] He is noted for his English commentary and scholarly translation of the Bhagavad Gita.

William Douglas Penneck Hill

M.A.
OccupationTranslator, writer
SubjectBhagavad Gita, Indology
 Literature portal

Biography

He was born in 1884 in London, England. In 1928 he translated the Bhagavad Gita into English. He died on 9 April 1962 in Poole, Dorset, England.

Review

W. Douglas P. Hill, who in 1928 gave us the most outstanding English rendering of the text, was quite conscious of the difference between good and bad translations. He noted in his "Bibliographical Notes" that in the eighteen eighties and nineties the Bhagavadgītā had become "the playground of western pseudo-mystics." He did not appreciate the attempts that he grouped together as "Theosophical Versions"; he referred to the greater part of other works on the Gītā as comparatively worthless," and he added: "Hundreds of vernacular editions have found a home in the Indian Office Library, and still continue to encumber its reluctant shelves."

– Kees W. Bolle[2]

References
  1. Hill, W. Douglas P. (1928). The Bhagavadgītā. Oxford University Press: Second abridged edition (1953). Fourth impression (1973). Retrieved 10 October 2017.
  2. Bolle, Kees W. (1979). The Bhagavadgītā: A New Translation. University of California Press. p. 224–25. Retrieved 10 October 2017.

Further reading

Reviews of Hill's translation of, and commentary on, the Gita
  • Barnett, L. (1929). Indica by L. D. Barnett – 1. The Bhagavadgītā. Translated from the Sanskrit with an introduction, an argument, and a commentary, by Hill W. Douglas P. M.A. 9 × 6, pp. x 303. London, Oxford printed: Oxford University Press, 1928. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland, 61(1), 125–130. doi:10.1017/S0035869X00061694
  • Charpentier, Jarl (1928). The Bhagavadgita, translated from the Sanskrit, with an Introduction, an Argument and a Commentary by W. Douglas P. Hill, Indian Antiquary, Volume 59, p19
  • Randle, H. N. (1929). The Bhagavadgītā. Translated from the Sanskrit with an Introduction and Argument and a Commentary by W. Douglas P. Hill. pp. 12, 303. London: Oxford University Press, 1928". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 5 (03): 638.
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