A literary history of Persia

ANQUETIL DU PERRON 45year above mentioned a facsimile of four leaves of the BodleianMS. of the Vendidad fell into the hands of a young Frenchman,Anquetil du Perron, then not much more than twenty years ofage ;and he, with an impulsiveness and devotion to sciencetruly Gallic, at once resolved to win for his country the gloryof wresting from the suspicious priesthood who guarded themthe keys tothese hidden secrets of an old-world faith, and oflaying before the learned world a complete account of theZoroastrian doctrines, based, not on the statements of non-Zoroastrian or even modern Parsi writers, but on the actualtestimony of the ancient Scriptures themselves. So eager washis haste that, though assured of help and pecuniary assistancein his projected journey to India, his impatience to begin hiswork impelled him to enlist as a common soldier of the FrenchEast India Company ;so firm was his purpose and so steadfasthis resolve that, in face of every kind of difficulty and discouragement,suffering, sickness, opposition, perils by sea andperils of war, he persevered for seven years and a half, until,on March 15, 1762, having at length regained Paris after hislong and adventurous exile, he deposited his precious manuscripts,the fruits of his incredible labours, in the Bibliothequedu Roi. Yet still nine years' laborious, but now tranquil,work laybefore him ere, in 1771, he was able to offer to theworld the assured and final outcome of his endeavour a greatwork in three volumes bearing the following cumbrous title :Zend-Avesta, otevrage de Zoroastre, cantenant les idees theologiques^physiques^ et morales de ce legislateur^les ceremonies du cultereligieux quil a etabli^ et plusieurs traits importans relatifs at'ancienne histoire des Terses^ traduit en Fran$ais sur ^originalZend avec des Remarques : et accompagnl de plusieurs traitespropres a eclaircir les matieres qui en sont robjet. This workwas in the fullest sense of the word epoch-making, or, as theGermans" say, bahn-brechend." Anquetil completely accomplishedthe greattask he had set himself. Much remained tobe done in detail by his successors, manyinaccuracies are