A handsome copy of the first edition of this study of faith, customs and superstitions of Eastern countries (present-day Asia and the Middle East). The fascination of superstition and religion for the rational mind of the 18th century knows no bounds. Voltaire in his Philosophical Dictionary wrote: ’ If it is Zoroaster who first announced to mankind that fine maxim: “In the doubt whether an action be good or bad, abstain from it,” Zoroaster was the first of men after Confucius … If this beautiful lesson of morality is found only in the hundred gates of the “Sadder,” let us bless the author of the “Sadder.” There may be very ridiculous dogmas and rites united with an excellent morality’. As the author of the present work writes in his preface ‘one would blush to belong to a race so feeble, so credulous from its birth as is man. His history is but a tissue of inept, inconsequential, and puerile acts’.
This interest in Zoroaster and the religion of the Parsees was obviously partly based on actual contacts in Bombay (Mumbai) and the reports in travel literature, and partly on other ancient written sources. In France there were two figures who stand out, the abbé Foucher, who is mentioned in the preface to this book, was a correspondent of Voltaire (Oeuvres Complètes 70B), and published various learned articles on Zoroastrianism and Anquetil-Duperron (1731-1805) the translator of the Avesta (completed 1760; published in three volumes in 1771), to whom reference is also made.
The present extraordinary work by a person best described as a journalist or ‘miscellaneous writer’ is divided into two parts, of which the first is concerned generally with the superstitions of the eastern peoples of the ancient world. This includes a lengthy section (pp.79-90) translated from Lucian Philopseudes. The second part, after a short introduction, presents a French translation of the Sad-dar or Hundred Doors of the Zoroastrians or Parsees.
This is based on the Latin translation of the Saddar Nazm or metrical Saddar written about 1495 by Mardshah bin Malekshah and given in Thomas Hyde’s Historia religionis veterum Persarum, Oxford, 1700, new edition 1760, pp.441-512, a work referred to by Voltaire (A translation of a different text by E.W. West was published in volume 24 of Sacred Books of the East, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1885.) The end of the second part deals with three impostors (all with portraits) from the East, Apollonius of Tyana, Simon bar Kokhba, leader of the Jewish revolt against the Romans in AD 132, and Sabbatai Zevi (1626-76) who proclaimed himself the Messiah.
A number of the plates are of plants and animals (including at part 2 p. 186, two whales, one in the process of being butchered), and others are of antiquities.The two frontispieces are by Nicolas Ransonette (1745-1810), as is plate at part 2 p. 59 ‘Pont Tchinavart’.The interesting 2 plates (on one sheet) at part 1 p. 39 are earlier. That of raising silk worms and making silk is from a French work on silk making (? possibly an edition of Olivier de Serres). The plate signed Jean Crespy (or Crépy, 1670-1739) is from the 1735 edition of Pomet’s Histoire générale des drogues.
The author Poncelin de La Roche-Tilhac (1746-1828) was born in Poitou. At one time a supporter of the French Revolution, he later turned against it, and devoted his life to journalism (he edited Le Courrier français June 1789-January 1796) and literary pursuits, writing on America, Tahiti, and a work on antiquities with engravings by Picart (advertised on verso of the title of this work). He also translated from the Greek the Periplus of Scylax appended to the 1797 edition of Pausanias. As a printer/publisher he was remarkably unsuccessful and went bankrupt.
Literature: J. Duchesne-Guillemin, The Western response to Zoroaster, Oxford, 1958. N. K. Firby, European Travellers and their Perceptions of Zoroastrians in the 17th and 18th Centuries, AMI, Ergänzungsband 14, Berlin, 1988.
