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The strangeness of this religion attracted public attention, which was especially directed towards certain blemishes, which had crept into it during a decadent period, and tarnished its original purity, and although learned men continued to devote themselves to a study more and more deeply penetrated with the Sanscrit language, they were yet so unprepared for the results which must inevitably follow this study, that certain German universities became the scenes of veritable scandals, when some of the learned declared that they had found a community of origin between the people of Athens, of Rome, and of India, and the stupefaction of the philologists knew no bounds when, in 1833, Bopp’s work appeared, The Comparative Grammar of the Greek, Latin, Gothic, Sanscrit, Zend, Lithuanian, Slavonic, and German Languages, whilst the effect on the younger students was quite bewildering.

But that which created the greatest furore in all Europe was the promulgation of the scientific discoveries of Eugène Burnouf, Professor of Oriental Languages in the Collège de France. Long centuries had passed during which no original Sanscrit document had come to light, and now in the short space of ten years three complete collections of Oriental literature were known, the sacred books of the Brahmans, of the Buddhists, and of the Magians. “The critical examination and restitution of the Zend texts, the outlines of a Zend grammar, the translation and philological anatomy of considerable portions of the Zoroastrian writings were the work of the learned young French scholar.”[6]