Such, then, was the state of knowledge in 1754. No further advance had been made towards the understanding Anquetil du Perron (1754- 1771). of the Avesta, though several new MSS. had been brought to England: to wit, a MS. of the Vendidâd obtained from the Pársís of India by George Bourchier (or Bowcher) in 1718, conveyed to England by Richard Cobbe in 1723, and presented to the Bodleian, where it is now preserved (BODL. OR. 321); and two MSS. of the Yasna bought at Surat by Frazer, who also endeavoured, but vainly, to induce the Zoroastrian priests to teach him the Avestic and Pahlawí languages. But in the year above mentioned a facsimile of four leaves of the Bodleian MS. of the Vendidâd fell into the hands of a young Frenchman, Anquetil du Perron, then not much more than twenty years of age; and he, with an impulsiveness and devotion to science truly Gallic, at once resolved to win for his country the glory of wresting from the suspicious priesthood who guarded them the keys to these hidden secrets of an old-world faith, and of laying before the learned world a complete account of the Zoroastrian doctrines, based, not on the statements of non-Zoroastrian or even modern Pársí writers, but on the actual testimony of the ancient Scriptures themselves. So eager was his haste that, though assured of help and pecuniary assistance in his projected journey to India, his impatience to begin his work impelled him to enlist as a common soldier of the French East India Company; so firm was his purpose and so steadfast his resolve that, in face of every kind of difficulty and dis­couragement, suffering, sickness, opposition, perils by sea and perils of war, he persevered for seven years and a half, until, on March 15, 1762, having at length regained Paris after his long and adventurous exile, he deposited his precious manu­scripts, the fruits of his incredible labours, in the Bibliothèque du Roi. Yet still nine years' laborious, but now tranquil, work lay before him ere, in 1771, he was able to offer to the world the assured and final outcome of his endeavour—a great work in three volumes bearing the following cumbrous title: Zend-Avesta, ouvrage de Zoroastre, contenant les idées théologiques, physiques, et morales de ce legislateur, les cérémonies du culte religieux qu'il a établi, et plusieurs traits importans relatifs à l'ancienne histoire des Perses, traduit en Français sur l'original Zend avec des Remarques: et accompagné de plusieurs traités propres à éclaircir les matières qui en sont l'objet. This work was in the fullest sense of the word epoch-making, or, as the Germans say, “bahn-brechend.” Anquetil completely accom­plished the great task he had set himself. Much remained to be done in detail by his successors, many inaccuracies are naturally to be found in his work;* yet we may fairly say that to him in chief belongs the merit of those discoveries as to the religion and language of the ancient Zoroastrians from which so many important results, literary, philological, ethno­logical, and philosophical, have since been drawn.

Of the details of Anquetil's journey this is hardly the place to speak. They are narrated with great minuteness in the Anquetil's ad­ventures. first volume of his work (pp. i-cccclxxviii), and include, in truth, a mass of purely personal details which might, perhaps, as well have been omitted, and which certainly rendered the book an easier target for the derision to which it was destined shortly to be exposed. Briefly, Anquetil quitted Paris with his “petit equipage” (containing, except for a few books, only two shirts, two handkerchiefs and a pair of socks), without the knowledge of any one except his brother, who was bound to secrecy, on November 7, 1754, and marched with his company—men little to his taste, whom he speaks of as “ces brutaux”—to L'Orient, which he reached on the 16th. Here he was informed that the King had been graciously pleased to grant him an allowance of five hundred livres, and he was further accorded a first-class passage to India. Sailing from L'Orient on February 7, 1755, he reached Pondichery on August 9th of the same year, and there was hospitably received by M. Goupil, the Commandant of the troops. He at once set himself to learn Persian, which afterwards served as the means of communication between himself and the Zoroastrian priests. More than three years elapsed, however, ere he reached Surat (May 1, 1758), shortly before it passed into the hands of the English (March, 1759). This long delay in the prosecution of his plan was caused, apparently, partly by his insatiable curiosity as to the antiquities, religions, customs, and languages of India (for his original scheme extended far beyond what immediately concerned the Zoroastrian religion), partly by the political complications of that time. After numerous adven­tures, however, he ultimately arrived at Surat on the date indicated above. He at once put himself in relation with two Pársí dastúrs, or priests, named Dáráb and Ká'ús, from whom, three months later, he received, after many vexatious delays and attempts at extortion and evasion, a professedly complete copy of the Vendidâd. Fully aware of the necessity for caution, he succeeded in borrowing from another dastúr, Manúchihrjí (who, owing to religious differences, was not on terms of intercourse with Dáráb and Ká'ús) another good and ancient manuscript of the same work; and, on collating this with the other, he was not long in discovering that his two dastúrs had deliberately supplied him with a defective copy. They, on being convicted of this fraud, became at once more communicative, and less disposed to attempt any further imposition, and furnished him with other works, such as the Persian Story of Sanján (of which Anquetil gives an abstract at pp. cccxviii-cccxxiv of his work), an account of the descent of all copies of the Vendidâd and its Pahlawí commentary preserved in India from a Persian original brought thither from Sístán by a dastúr named Ardashír about the fourteenth century of our era, and a further account of the relations maintained from time to time by the Zoroastrians of Persia with those of India.

On March 24, 1759, Anquetil completed his translation of the Pahlawí-Persian vocabulary, and six days later began the Anquetil's work. translation of the Vendidâd, which, together with the collation of the two MSS., he finished on June 16th of the same year. A severe illness, followed by a savage attack by a compatriot, interrupted his work for five months, and it was not till November 20th that he was able to continue his labours with the help of the dastúr Dáráb. During this time he received much help and friendly protection from the English, notably from Mr. Spencer, of whom he speaks in the highest terms (p. cccxlvi), and Mr. Erskine. Having completed the translation of the Yasna, Vispered, and Vendidâd, the Pahlawí Bundahish, the Sí-rúza, Riváyats, &c., and visited the sacred fire in its temple, and the dakhmas, or “towers of silence,” Anquetil, again attacked by illness, and fearful of risking the loss of the precious harvest of his labours, resolved to renounce his further projects of travel, which included a journey to China. Again assisted by the English, to whom, notwithstanding the state of war which existed between his country and theirs, he did not fear to appeal, knowing them, as he says, “généreux quand on les prend par un certain côté” (p. ccccxxxi), he sailed from Surat to Bombay, where, after, a sojourn of more than a month, he shipped himself and his precious manuscripts (180 in number, enumerated in detail at pp. dxxix-dxli of the first volume of his work) on board the Bristol on April 28, 1761, and arrived at Portsmouth on November 17th of the same year. There he was compelled, greatly to his displeasure, to leave his manuscripts in the custom-house, while he himself was sent with other French prisoners to Wickham. As, however, he was not a prisoner of war (being, indeed, under English protection), permission was soon accorded him to return to France; but, eagerly as he desired to see his native country after so long an absence, and, above all, to secure the safety of those precious and hardly-won documents which still chiefly occupied his thoughts, he would not quit this country without a brief visit to Oxford, and a hasty inspection of the Avestic manuscripts there preserved. “Je déclarai net,” he says (p. ccccliv), “que je ne quitterais pas l'Angleterre sans avoir vu Oxford, puis qu'on m'y avait retenu prisonnier contre le droit des gens. Le désir de comparer mes manuscrits avec ceux de cette célèbre Université n'avait pas peu ajouté aux raisons qui m'avaient comme forcé de prendre, pour revenir en Europe, la voie Anglaise.” Well furnished with letters of introduction, he arrived at Oxford on January 17, 1762, whence, after a stay of two days, he returned, by way of Wickham, Portsmouth, and London, to Gravesend, where he embarked for Ostend on February 14th. He finally reached Paris on March 14, 1762, and on the following day at length deposited his manuscripts at the Bibliothèque du Roi.