ANQUETIL DUPERRON, ABRAHAM-HYACINTHE. - Orientalist, born in Paris on 7 Dec. 1731, died there on 17 Jan. 1805. Passionately interested in ancient Persia, he wished to learn its language and religion, and, in order to achieve this aim, proposed to establish contact with the modern followers of Zoroaster, the Parsis of India. He enlisted in an expeditionary corps and landed at Pondichéry in 1755; three years later, in 1758, he succeeded in settling in Surate, where he came into contact and established relations with the Parsis. A Parsi, Darab, became his teacher of the ancient religious language and acquainted him with the ancient cult; he also assisted him in the search for and acquisition of ancient manuscripts. On his return to Paris (1762), he thus brought back 180 manuscripts, including two of the Avesta. With the knowledge acquired in India, both of the language and of the religion, as well as of the usages and customs of the Parsi community, he set to work, and in 1771 was able to publish his fundamental work, a French translation of the Avesta with commentary. The novelty of the matter and of the information filled the learned world with astonishment, but also with a certain distrust, not always justified. It was, moreover, the beginning of Iranian studies, and encouraged many to continue along the path opened by his work: Zend Avesta, ouvrage de Zoroastre, 3 vols., Parigi 1771.
From 1763 he was a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres; but in 1793 he was excluded from it because of his ideas opposed to the Revolution; readmitted in 1803, he declined the honour and renounced the pension that Napoleone wished to grant him, just as he had renounced that of Luigi XVI.