Friedrich Spiegel is one of the world’s most famous Avesta researchers. With much research and perseverance, he translated the Avesta in three volumes into German and increased the world’s knowledge about this holy book. His work is known to be influential and essential in Avesta’s studies.
Friedrich von Spiegel was born in 1820 in Bavaria, Germany. He very soon learned the Hebrew and Arabic languages, and while studying at the University of Erlangen, he met Friedrich Rucket. Rucket, a renowned scholar in the Shahnameh, made Spiegel familiar with this Iranian epic. This familiarization gave Spiegel the cause to add reading the Shahnameh to his daily task. In addition, he also learned the Sanskrit language and became very interested in the religious language of Buddhists (Pali language) and increased his knowledge in this field as well.
In 1842, Spiegel began his long-term research in the Pahlavi language manuscripts, and continued this study at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He did not suffice to these manuscripts and started studying the ancient Pahlavi texts in Paris, London and Oxford libraries. These investigations and time-consuming research lasted until 1849 AD. Spiegel returned to Germany this year and taught at the University of Munich. He also taught at the University of Erlangen, the same university where he had studied. One of the most prominent students he trained was Christian Bartholomew (who died in 1925 AD), who later gained fame in linguistics and oriental studies.
Initially, Spiegel translated various works by Ferdowsi, Nizami, Khaqani, and Saadi into German. But, in the field of Avesta studies, in 1852, he [published the first volume of the Avesta transliteration. 5 years later, he presented the second volume of his transliteration to Avesta knowledge seekers. At the same time as him, Vestergaard, a Danish Avesta scholar, started translating the Avesta and completed it successfully. His work is considered superior to the works of Spiegel.
In 1863, Spiegel presented the third volume of the translation of the Avesta in German and added a preface full of new insights to it. He thought that Avesta could be better understood with the help of commentaries and explanations on the Pahlavi language. What Spiegel wrote in the preface to his translation is a rich and wide-ranging collection of myths, culture, politics, religious ideas, social and cultural life, and many other points about the history and past of Iranians.
After resigning as a university professor, Friedrich Spiegel spent the last years of his life in Munich and finally died in 1905.
