Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 02.djvu/371

AVESTA. the religion and customs of the Persians. Among them may be mentioned the works of Pietro della Valle (1620), Henry Lord (1630), Mandelslo (1658), Tavernier (1678), Chardin (1721), Du Chinon. Most important, however, was the work of the distinguished Oxford scholar, Thomas Hyde (1700). It was written in Latin, and entitled Historia Religionis Veterum Persarum. Hyde resorted chiefly to the later Parsi sources; the original texts he could not use, although an Avesta MS. of the Yasna seems to have been brought to Canterbury as early as 1633. Hyde appealed earnestly, however, to scholars to procure MSS. of the sacred books of the Parsis, and aroused much interest in the subject. In 1723 a copy of the Vendīdād Sādah was procured by an Englishman, George Boucher, from the Parsis in Surat, and deposited as a curiosity in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. No one, however, could read the texts. To a young Frenchman, Anquetil-Duperron, belongs the honor of first deciphering them. The history of his labors is interesting and instructive. Happening, in 1744, to see some tracings made from the Oxford MS., and sent to Paris as a specimen, Anquetil-Duperron at once conceived the spirited idea of going to Persia or India, and obtaining from the priests themselves the knowledge of their sacred books. Though fired with zeal and enthusiasm, he had no means or aid to carry out his plan. He seized upon the idea of enlisting as a soldier in the troops that were to start for India, and in November, 1754, behind the martial drum and fife, this youthful scholar marched out of Paris. The French Government, however, recognizing at once his noble purpose, gave him his discharge from the army and presented him his passage to India. After countless difficulties he reached Surat, and there, after many discouragements and in spite of almost insurmountable obstacles, he succeeded in winning the confidence and favor of the priests, with whom he was able to communicate after he had learned the modern Persian. He gradually induced the priests to impart to him the language of their sacred works, to let him take some of the manuscripts, and even to initiate him into some of the rites and ceremonies of their religion. He stayed among the people for seven years, and then, in 1761, he started for his home in Europe. He stopped at Oxford before going directly to Paris, and compared his MSS. with that of the Bodleian Library, in order to be assured that he had not been imposed upon. The next ten years were devoted to work upon his MSS. and translation, and in 1771, seventeen years after the time that he had first marched out of Paris, he gave forth to the world the results of his untiring labors. This was the first translation of the Avesta, or, as he called it, Zend-Avesta (Ouvrage de Zoroastre, 3 vols., Paris, 1771), a picture of the religion and manners contained in the sacred book of the Zoroastrians.

The ardent enthusiasm which hailed this discovery and opening to the world of a literature, religion, and philosophy of ancient times was, unfortunately, soon dampened. Some, like Kant, were disappointed at not finding the philosophical or religious ideas which they had looked for; while others missed the high literary value they had expected. They little considered how inaccurate, of necessity, such a first translation must be. Though Anquetil-Duperron had learned the language from the priests, still, people did not know that the priestly tradition itself had lost much during the ages of persecution or oblivion into which the religion had fallen. They did not take into account that Anquetil-Duperron was learning one foreign tongue, the Avesta, through another, the modern Persian; nor did they know how little accurate and scientific training Anquetil-Duperron had had. A discussion as to the authenticity of the work arose. It was suggested that the so-called Zend-Avesta was not the genuine work of Zoroaster, but a forgery. Foremost among the detractors, it is to be regretted, was the distinguished Orientalist, Sir William Jones. He claimed, in a letter published in French (1771) that Anquetil-Duperron had been duped; that the Parsis had palmed off upon him a conglomeration of worthless fabrications and absurdities. In England Sir William Jones was supported by Richardson; in Germany he was supported by Meiners. In France the genuineness of the book was universally accepted, and in one famous German scholar, Kleuker, it found an ardent supporter. He translated Anquetil-Duperron's work into German (Riga, 1776), for the use of his countrymen, especially the theologians, and he supported the genuineness of these scriptures by classical allusions to the Magi. For nearly fifty years, however, the battle as to authenticity still raged. Anquetil-Duperron's translation, as acquired from the priests, was supposed to be a true standard to judge by: little or no work was done on the texts. The opinion that the books were a forgery was gradually, however, beginning to grow somewhat less. It was the advance in the study of Sanskrit that finally won the victory for the advocates of the authenticity of the sacred books. About 1825 — more than fifty years after the appearance of Anquetil-Duperron's translation — the Avestan texts themselves began to be carefully studied by Sanskrit scholars. The close affinity between the two languages had already been noticed by different scholars; but in 1826 the more exact relation between the Sanskrit and the Avesta was shown by the Danish philologian, Rask, who had traveled in Persia and India, and who had brought back with him to the Copenhagen Library many valuable MSS. of the Avesta and of the Pahlavi books. Rask, in a small monograph on the age and authenticity of the Zend Language (1826), proved the antiquity of the language, showed it to be distinct from Sanskrit, though closely allied to it, and made some investigation into the alphabet in which the texts were written. About the same time the Avesta was taken up by the French Sanskrit scholar, Eugène Burnouf. Knowing the relation between the Sanskrit and the Avestan, and taking up the reading of the texts scientifically, through his knowledge of Sanskrit, he found at once philological inaccuracies in Anquetil's translation. Anquetil, he saw, must often have misinterpreted his teachers: the tradition itself necessarily must often have been defective. Instead of this less trustworthy French rendering, he turned to an older Sanskrit translation of a part of the Avesta. This was made in the Thirteenth Century, by the Parsi Neryosangh, and was based on the Pahlavi version. By means of this Sanskrit rendering, and by applying his philological learning, Burnouf