Horace Hayman Wilson

Horace Hayman Wilson (1786–1860) was a pioneering British Sanskrit scholar, Indologist, and the first Boden Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Oxford. A leading figure in early Western scholarship on India, he produced the first substantial English translation of The Vishnu Purana, published in 1840, introducing the text to the English-speaking world with extensive notes and commentary. Wilson previously served as Secretary of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta and authored an influential Sanskrit–English dictionary along with numerous works on Indian history, culture, and literature. His translation of The Vishnu Purana remains a landmark contribution to the study of Hindu sacred texts.