The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 1 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations
Religion
The Dabistán, or School of manners, Volume 1 (of 3): translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations
Iran -- Religion; Religions
[114] Anquetil composed a number of Memoirs, read to the
French Institut and preserved in their printed records. He
published, in 1771, three quarto volumes upon his voyages
to, in, and from India, and the Works of Zoroaster; in 1798,
_L’Inde en rapport avec l’Europe; in 1799, La Legislation
orientale, ou le despotisme considéré dans la Turquie, la
Perse et l’Indostane_. An epistle which he placed before his
Latin translation of _Dara Shuko’s Persian Upanishad_, and
addressed to the Brahmans of India, contained, as it were,
his religious and political testament. He declares his
nourishment to have been reduced, like that of an abstemious
ascetic, living, even in winter, without fire; and sleeping
in a bed without feathers or sheets. His juvenile boast of
“personal beauty” was expiated by total neglect of his body,
left “with linen unchanged and unwashed;” his aspirations to
“a vast extent of learning” had subsided into patient and
most persevering studies. But, disdaining to accept gifts
and pensions, even from government, he preserved his
absolute liberty, and blessed his poverty, “as the salvation
of his soul and body, the rampart of morality and of
religion; a friend of all men; victorious over the
allurements of the world” he tended towards the Supreme
Being. Well may virtues so rare efface other human failings
of Anquetil du Perron. He died, in his seventy-fourth year,
in 1805.――(See _Histoire et Mémoires de l’Institut royal de
France. Classe d’Histoire et de Littérature anciennes_, tome
III. 1818.)
[115] See Transl., vol. I. pp. 351-353.
[116] Works, vol. III. p. 115.
[117] Transl. vol. I. p. 275.
[118] _Ibid._, p. 310.
[119] _Loco cit._, p. 117.
[120] Yezd, in central Persia, is the ancient Isatichæ of
Ptolemy. It is celebrated on account of the fire-worship of
_Yezdan_ (or Ormuzd, as light), there practised, and as the
last asylum of the adherents to Zoroaster’s religion, who
fled before the Muhammedans. From thence thefire-worshippers
sought a refuge in India, and settled in Diu, Bombay, and in
the higher valleys of the Indus and the Ganges.
[121] See vol. I. p. 71.
[122] See vol. I. p. 321.
[123] For instance, the _Utopia_ of Thomas Moore, the
_Oceana_ of Harrington, the _Leviathan_ of Hobbes, etc., etc.
§ IV.――THE RELIGION OF THE HINDUS.
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