'A General Sketch of the History of Persia' [‎45] (96/636)

THE ZEND AVESTA.
45
Having resolved to procure manuscripts of all the sacred
books of Zoroaster in Western India, he entered him
self as a sailor on board a ship of the French East India
Company bound for Bombay, in 1754. Arriving at
Surat, he bribed one of the most learned Dustiirs
(Parsee priests) to procure him manuscripts, and teach
him the language. In 1759, he set about making a
French translation of the Zend Avesta; and in 1761 he
sailed for Europe, having purchased many manuscript
copies of the sacred books of the Parsees. These he
compared with manuscripts in England, and he finally
deposited the whole of his collection in the library at
Paris, where they still remain. In 1771, he published
his Zend Avesta, the work of Zoroaster, translated into
French, 2 vols. 4to. His work, though incorrect and
inaccurate, nevertheless gives a notion of the whole of
the Zoroastrian ideas. 1 But it was only in the easier
parts that he could gain an approximate idea of their
contents, and he was unable to distinguish cases, tenses,
or moods. Yet his descriptions of rites and ceremonies
are quite correct: he was trustworthy, wrote only what
was taught him by the Parsee Dustiirs, and much is
due to him as the founder of all researches subse
quently made into the Zend Avesta.
Erasmus Eask, a Danish scholar, followed in the
footsteps of AnquetiL He went to Bombay to purchase
Zend and Pehlvi manuscripts, and in 1830 deposited
the most ancient known copies of two of the sacred
1 Jones, then a young man, wrote a pamphlet attacking Anquetil.
He said, ' Either Zoroaster did not write this book, or he did not
possess common sense.'