The first translation of the Bhagavad Gita into English was done by:

Sir Charles Wilkins (1749-1836), an English printer and orientalist who worked for the East India Company in Bengal, made the first English translation of the Bhagavad Gita. It was published in London in 1785 with the title "The Bhagvat-Geeta, or Dialogues of Kreeshna and Arjoon".

About the translation:

It was the first direct translation of a Sanskrit work into a European language.

It was published with a preface by Warren Hastings, the Governor-General of India, who encouraged the study of Indian culture and languages. Hastings wrote that the Gita would survive "when the British dominion in India shall long have ceased to exist".

The translation introduced the Gita to European readers and influenced Western thinkers and writers, including the American transcendentalists Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.

About Charles Wilkins:

He learnt Sanskrit in Benares (Varanasi) from Brahmin scholars.

He also designed and cast the first Bengali printing type, which was used to print Nathaniel Halhed's "A Grammar of the Bengal Language" (1778). For this, he is sometimes called the "father of Bengali typography".

He was one of the founding members of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1784), founded by Sir William Jones.

He also translated the "Hitopadesha" and parts of the Mahabharata (the story of Shakuntala).

Other early orientalist translations:

• William Jones translated Kalidasa's "Abhijnanashakuntalam" (1789) and the "Manusmriti" into English.
• Max Müller, a German scholar, edited the Rigveda and the series "Sacred Books of the East".
• Edwin Arnold wrote "The Song Celestial" (1885), a famous poetic translation of the Gita, and "The Light of Asia" (1879), on the life of the Buddha.

Why not the other options?

• ✗William Jones translated "Shakuntala" and founded the Asiatic Society.
• ✗Max Müller edited the Rigveda and the "Sacred Books of the East".
• ✗Edwin Arnold wrote "The Song Celestial", a later translation of the Gita.