Sir Charles Wilkins KH FRS (1749 – 13 May 1836) was an English typographer and Orientalist, and founding member of the Asiatic Society.

[7] Wilkins moved to Benares (Varanasi), where he studied Sanskrit under Kalinatha, a Brahmin pandit.

At this period he began work on his translation of the Mahabharata, securing strong support for his activities from the governor of British India, Warren Hastings.

The most important was his version of the Gita, published in 1785 as 'Bhagvat-geeta', or Dialogues of Krishna and Arjun (London: Nourse, 1785).

In his preface Wilkins argued that the Gita was written to encourage a form of monotheist "unitarianism" and to draw Hinduism away from the polytheism he ascribed to the Vedas.

William Blake later celebrated the publication in his picture The Bramins, exhibited in 1809, which depicted Wilkins and Brahmin scholars working on the translation.

In 1787 Wilkins followed the Gita with his translation of The Heetopades of Veeshnoo-Sarma, in a Series of Connected Fables, Interspersed with Moral, Prudential and Political Maxims (Bath: 1787).

King George IV gave him the badge of the Royal Guelphic Order and he was knighted in recognition of his services to Oriental scholarship in 1833.

[15] He also published a catalogue of the manuscripts collected by Sir William Jones, who acknowledged his indebtedness to Wilkins.