The New International Encyclopædia/Anquetil Duperron, Abraham Hyacinthe

ANQUETIL DUPERRON, dụ'pắ'rôn', Abraham Hyacinthe (1731-1805) . A French Orientalist, born in Paris. He studied theology and Oriental languages, and in 1754 enlisted as a private soldier for India. There, after securing the support of the French Government, he passed seven years in the collection and collation of manuscripts, and studied the language and doctrines of the sacred books of the Parsees. He returned to France in 1762, was elected a member of the Academy of Inscriptions in 1763, and in 1771 published Zend-Avesta, ouvrage de Zoroastre, 3 volumes, the first translation of Parsee religious works ever made into a European language. His further publications include L'Inde en rapport avec l'Europe (1790), and Oupnek’hat (1804), a Latin translation of a Persian rendering of the Sanskrit Upanishads, noteworthy as the source of Schopenhauer's knowledge of the Indian philosophy, by which his own system was not slightly influenced.