Prof. Edward Byles Cowell (January 23, 1826 - February 9, 1903) was a noted translator of Persian poetry and the first professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge University. Persian (known variously as: فارسی Fārsi or پارسی Pārsi, local name in Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, Tajik, a Central Asian dialect, or Dari, another local name in Tajikistan and Afghanistan) is a language spoken in Iran, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Bahrain, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Southern Russia, neighboring countries, and elsewhere. ... Sanskrit ( संस्कृतम्) is an Indo-European classical language of India and a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. ... The University of Cambridge (often called Cambridge University), located in Cambridge, England, is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world. ...

Cowell was born in Ipswich, and became interested in Oriental languages at the age of fifteen, when he found a copy of Sir William Jones's works (including his Persian Grammar) in the public library. Self-taught, he began translating and publishing Hafez within the year. Ipswich is a Borough which is the county town of Suffolk in East Anglia, England, and a local government district on the estuary of the River Orwell. ... Sir William Jones Sir William Jones (September 28, 1746 – April 27, 1794) was an English philologist and student of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages. ... Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi (also spelled Hafiz) (خواجه شمس‌الدین محمد حافظ شیرازی in Persian) was a Persian mystic and poet. ...

On the death of his father in 1842 he took over the family business. He married in 1845, and in 1850 entered Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied and catalogued Persian manuscripts for the Bodleian Library. From 1856-1867 he lived in Calcutta as professor of English history at Presidency College, and from 1858 also as principal of Sanskrit College. In this year he discovered a manuscript of Omar Khayyám's quatrains in the Asiatic Society's library and sent a copy to London for his friend and student, Edward Fitzgerald, who then produced the famous English translations (the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 1859). He also published, unsigned, an introduction to Khayyám with translations of thirty quatrains in the Calcutta Review (1858). Magdalen College could be Magdalen College, Oxford Magdalene College, Cambridge This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The University of Oxford, located in the city of Oxford in England, is the oldest university in the English-speaking world. ... Persian literature is literature written in Persian. ... Entrance to the Library, with the coats-of-arms of several Oxford colleges The Bodleian Library, the main research library of the University of Oxford, is one of the oldest libraries in Europe, and in England is second in size only to the British Library. ... This article is on Calcutta/Kolkata, the city. ... Tomb of Omar Khayyám, Nishapur, Iran. ... The Asiatic Society was founded by Sir William Jones (1746-1794) on 15 January 1784 in Calcutta, the capital of British India, to enhance and further the cause of Oriental research. ... Edward Marlborough FitzGerald (March 31, 1809–June 14, 1883) was an English writer, best known as the poet of the English translation of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám. ... The Rubáiyát is a collection of poems (of which there are about a thousand) attributed to the Persian mathematician and astronomer Omar Khayyám (1048-1123). ...

Having studied Hindustani, Bengali, and Sanskrit with Indian scholars, he returned to England to take up an appointment as the first professor of Sanskrit at Cambridge. He was made an honorary member of the German Oriental Society (DMG) in 1895, was awarded the Royal Asiatic Society's first gold medal in 1898, and in 1902 became a founding member of the British Academy. Hindustani is a term used by linguists to describe several closely related idioms in the northwestern part of the Indian subcontinent. ... Bengali or Bangla (বাংলা ) is an Indo-Aryan language of South Asia that evolved as a successor to Sanskrit, Pali, and Prakrit. ... Sanskrit ( संस्कृतम्) is an Indo-European classical language of India and a liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. ... Article 90a of the bylaws of the Royal Asiatic Society. ... The British Academy is the United Kingdoms national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. ...

Selected works

• "The Mesnavi of Jelaleddin Rumi," The Gentleman's Magazine, N.S. 30, 1848, pp. 39-46, 148-52.
• "Persian Cuneiform Inscriptions and Persian Ballads," Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review 53, 1850, pp. 38-56.
• "Omar Khayyam, the Astronomer Poet of Persia", Calcutta Review 30, 1858, pp. 149-62.
• "Gyges' Ring in Plato and Nizami," J(R)ASB 3, no. 2, 1861, pp. 151-57.
• "Two Kasídahs of the Persian Poet Anwarí," with E. H. Palmer, The Journal of Philology 4, no. 7, 1872, pp. 1-47.
• Buddhist Mahâyâna Texts. Part 1. The Buddha-karita of Asvaghosha, translated from the Sanskrit, in the Sacred Books of the East, vol. 49, Oxford University Press, 1894.

The Sacred Books of the East is a monumental, 50-volume set of English translations of Asian religious writings, edited by Max Müller and published by the Oxford University Press between 1879 and 1910. ... Oxford University Press (OUP) is a highly-respected publishing house and a department of the University of Oxford in England. ...

References

• George Cowell, Life and Letters of Edward Byles Cowell, London, 1904.
• F. W. Thomas, "Edward Byles Cowell," in Dictionary of National Biography, Supplement 1901-1911, London, 1912, I, pp. 427-30.