- George Uglow Pope
George Uglow Pope (1820 - 1908) popularly known as Rev. G.U. Pope or G.U. Pope was a
Christian missionary who spent many years inTamil Nadu and translated many Tamil texts into English. His popular translations includeTirukkural andTiruvachagam . His efforts were recognized by theRoyal Asiatic Society in the form of a gold medal. He was the head of theBishop Cotton Boys School ,Bangalore before returning to Oxford.George Uglow Pope was born on 24 April 1820 in
Prince Edward Island inNova Scotia . His family migrated toEngland when he was an infant. He left for SouthIndia in 1839 and arrived atSawyerpuram nearTuticorin . Pope turned into a scholar of Tamil, Sanskrit and Telugu. He set up several schools and taught Latin, English, Hebrew, Mathematics and Philosophy.He completed his translation of "Tirukkural" on September 1, 1886. His "Sacred Kural" contains introduction, grammar, translation, notes, lexicon and concordance. It also includes the English translation of F. W. Ellis and the Latin Translation of
Constanzo Beschi with 436 pages. He had, by February 1893, translated "Naaladiyaar".His magnum opus, the translation of "Tiruvachakam" appeared in 1900. Of this he said: "I date this on my eightieth birthday. I find, by reference, that my first Tamil lesson was in 1837. This ends, as I suppose a long life of devotion to Tamil studies. It is not without deep emotion that I thus bring to a close my life's literary work".
The much coveted Gold Medal of the
Royal Asiatic Society was awarded to him in 1906. He passed away on 12 February 1908. He delivered his last sermon on May 26, 1907.External links
* [http://www.geocities.com/thiruvasakam_in_symphony/gupope.html Info on G U Pope]
* [http://anglicanhistory.org/india/pope_aggression1853/ The Lutheran Aggression: A Letter to the Tranquebar Missionaries] , by G.U. Pope (1853)
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