Dimitrios Galanos


Dimitrios Galanos or Demetrios Galanos was the earliest recorded Greek Indologist. His translations of Sanskrit texts into Greek made knowledge of the philosophical and religious ideas of India available to many Europeans.
Born in Athens, Ottoman Empire in 1760, he spent 47 years in India, where he translated many Hindu sacred texts into Greek and compiled a Sanskrit-English-Greek dictionary of over 9000 words. He died on 3 May 1833 in Varanasi, India. He was buried in the Catholic cemetery there, and his tombstone is inscribed with the epitaph, "ΕΙΣ ΜΝΗΜΗΝ ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΥ ΓΑΛΑΝΟΥ ΤΟΥ ΑΘΗΝΑΙΟΥ". Munshi Sital Singh . Preceded by a short remembrance in Persian, the following Greek dirge was also added by Ananias, curate to the Patriarch of Sinai: "Demetrios Galanos, the Athenian from Greece, died in the Indies. He was a friend of the Muses and a man of learning. He shone brightly in fame and vocation. He left this wearisome life and departed for a life without affiction and eternal. Out of gratitude, his nephew Pandoleon erects this cenotaph for his eternal memory".
Galanos lived at Calcutta for 6 years. There he was teaching Greek language to the Greek community. Then, at 1793 he went to Varanasi and he started to translate ancient Indian scripts to Greek till his death.
A "Dimitrios Galanos" Chair for Hellenic Studies was established at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India in September 2000.
An International Conference titled “Demetrios Galanos and His Legacy: Indo-Greek scholarship 1790-2018” was organized by the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and was held in two phases, one – in New Delhi and the other – in Varanasi, in February, 2018.