Anquetil-Duperron

The French orientalist who, from Dārā Shikōh's Persian rather than any Sanskrit, produced a Latin version of the Upaniṣads in 1801 — the Oupnek'hat — in prose so contorted, part Latin and part transliterated Persian, that it is barely readable and was read anyway.

The link in the chain nobody would have designed. Sanskrit → Persian, by a prince who was executed for it → Latin, by a Frenchman → German. Four languages and a century and a half, and the thing still arrived with enough force to reroute a philosopher.