‎ECKARD, FRIEDRICH SIMON.‎
‎Ormuzd's lebendiges Wort an Zoroaster oder Zend-Avesta‎

‎Greifswald, A.F. Rose, 1789. 8vo. In later marbled paper covered boards with later leather title-label to spine. Head of spine chipped and stamp to title-page, otherwise a nice and clean copy. (32), 383, (1) pp. ‎

Reference : 62860

‎Rare first edition of this early German work on Zoroastrianism representing an extract of the Zend-Avesta together with a systematic exposition of the religious beliefs of the Parsis, a Zoroastrian ethnic group in the Indian subcontinent. Eckard here discusses ritual practice, priesthood, sacred texts, cosmology and ethics, drawing on contemporary European Orientalist scholarship, especially the work of Anquetil-Duperron, whose translation of the Avesta (Zend-Avesta, Ouvrage de Zoroastre, 1771) had only recently introduced these texts to Western readers.‎