Preface.

attained, to mention from his life story.

The Zend-Avesta The primary collection of religious texts of Zoroastrianism. was formerly the lawbook of all the nations that were enclosed by the Euphrates, Caucasus, Oxus The ancient name for the Amu Darya river in Central Asia., and the Indian Sea. This was known to Anquetil, who by chance in the year 1754 caught sight of a few pages of it, which had been copied from a manuscript that Hyde Thomas Hyde (1636–1703), an English Orientalist and professor at Oxford. possessed in England, but which no one—not even Hyde himself—could explain to him. They were from the Vendidad Sade *). Anquetil, indignant at the indifference of the learned men

*) The Vendidad Sade are genuine writings from the antiquity of Zoroaster The ancient Iranian prophet who founded Zoroastrianism., and consist of three parts: the Vendidad, the lawbook of the ParsisOriginally "Parsen"; the Zoroastrian community that fled from Persia to India to avoid religious persecution., the Visperad, and the Yasna Originally "Izeschne"; liturgical texts containing hymns and prayers. "Yasna" is the modern standard spelling for the original Avestan term. (praises and prayers used as liturgy); they constitute the main parts of the Parsi religion. These manuscripts had been brought to England by George Bourchier in 1723.