Description

James Darmesteter (1849‒94) was a great French Iranist who from 1885 occupied the chair of Persian language and literature at the Collège de France in Paris. His major fields of study were Iranian philology and the Zoroastrian religion. His greatest scholarly achievement was his translation of the Avesta, the surviving ancient sacred texts of the Zoroastrians. Darmesteter was also very interested in the language and history of Afghanistan. In 1886‒87 he undertook an 11-month philological mission to India, supported by the French Ministry of Education. He spent much ...