1787 · First French edition

Le Bhaguat-Geeta, ou Dialogues de Kreeshna et d’Arjoon

Abbé Jean-Pierre Parraud · after Charles Wilkins

The first appearance of the Bhagavad Gita in French, published only two years after Charles Wilkins’s epoch-making English translation of 1785.

Published only two years after Charles Wilkins’s epoch-making English translation of 1785, this is the first appearance of the Bhagavad Gita in French—and a landmark in the transmission of Indian philosophical thought to continental Europe. Translated by Abbé Jean-Pierre Parraud from Wilkins’s pioneering text, it introduced French readers to the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna at a formative moment in the European encounter with Sanskrit literature.

The publication belongs to the intellectual world of the Enlightenment, when India’s sacred and philosophical traditions were beginning to reshape European ideas of religion, antiquity and the nature of civilization. More than an early translation, it represents one of the first substantial points of contact between the Gita and the Francophone world, anticipating the profound influence Indian thought would later exert upon European Romanticism, comparative religion and philosophy.

This is an exceptionally fresh and desirable copy. The text is clean and remarkably free from foxing, while the handsome contemporary binding retains an elegant gilt spine and attractive period character. Of particular interest is the engraved ex-libris of M. de Laus de Boissy, an eighteenth-century French magistrate and bibliophile. Its presence situates the volume within the cultivated collecting culture of ancien-régime France and gives this copy a distinguished, historically resonant provenance.

Rarely encountered in such freshness and with so evocative a provenance, the 1787 Bhaguat-Geeta is a compelling cultural asset: at once an important early edition of one of India’s foundational texts, a document of Enlightenment intellectual history, and a beautiful object from the first generation of European engagement with the Bhagavad Gita.

Publication

Paris · Buisson, 1787

Language

French

Format

Octavo · Contemporary mottled calf · Gilt spine · Red morocco lettering-piece · Marbled endpapers

Completeness

Complete.

Condition

Very good to excellent. Exceptionally clean and fresh internally, without material foxing; light age-consistent wear to the contemporary binding.

Provenance

M. de Laus de Boissy, with his engraved armorial bookplate.

Rarity

The first French edition of the Bhagavad Gita, rarely encountered in such freshness and with distinguished ancien-régime provenance.

Status

Available

Price

USD 3,750