Farrukh Dhondy | Parsis are now an endangered lot; let’s look for ways to stop extinction
Parsi community members visit a fire temple on the occasion of ‘Navroz’, the Parsi New Year, at Kappawala Agiary in Mumbai, Thursday, March 21, 2024. (PTI Photo)
“In our alley black dogs were named ‘Moti’
Which means ‘pearl’ and is an ironic way,
Just as on seeing unzipped flies we say
“So, what’s with your air-conditioned dhoti?”
“And of course white stray dogs were called ‘Kaloo’
The dogs answered to these names as the joke Eluded them.
My neighbour would invoke Kipling, calling his cocks ‘Ka’ and ‘Bhaloo’!
And thus, we use these pet names for our mirth.
May the worthy succeed… God did the same when he created earth.”
From Yardon Ki Yaadein, by Bachchoo
Forgive me, gentle readers, for this naive attempt to address a vital question affecting our dwindling Parsi populace in an open letter to the Bombay Parsi Panchayat (BPP) — though of course it should be renamed the MumbaiPP (MPP) — (as should Bollywood, which should now be Mollywood? … Get on with it! –Ed)
Dear MPP Trustees: I believe you are about to launch an appeal in India’s Supreme Court asking it to overturn a judgment of the Bombay high court, which overturned your ban on two Parsi priests from attending or entering the Parsi “Towers of Silence” and the Zoroastrian fire temples, which you claim you “own”. Their transgression in your judgment: They prayed for the dead who were cremated; performed Navjote ceremonies — initiation into the Zoroastrian faith – of the children of Parsi mothers and non-Parsi fathers and performed Zoroastrian rituals for a Parsi marrying a non-Parsi.
The case to lift this ban was brought and won by caring members of the Parsi community imposed by your trustees on “dasturs” Framroze Mirza and Khushroo Madon in June 2006. The Bombay high court righteously ruled that you couldn’t arrogate powers to yourselves assuming the custodianship of the Zoroastrian religion. “Religion and faith reside in the hearts of the multitude for whom devotion to the faith is a matter of conscience,” is what the court said.
True enough.
So, let’s get some theology and history to prove it. I would first of all advise you to visit a site in Iran called “Naqsh-e Rustam”. You will find there tombs of the Hakamanyush (“Achaemenid” in the Anglicised version) emperors Darius and Xerxes who proclaimed themselves the first Royal Zoroastrians. You will also find friezes of the subsequent imperial dynasty of the Sassanian Zoroastrians.
These kings are in buried tombs!! Only the poor Zoroastrians, not owning or affording land, subjected their dead to be eaten by vultures — the sky burial that you espouse. So “yes” to tombs, and therefore to other forms of disposal of the Zoroastrian dead — sky burial is NOT a tenet of the religion.
And then this idea that we Parsis are a race and not the followers of a religion. Peculiar! Because in your bigoted mind it has taken the form of prosecuting or banning Parsi priests who have initiated into Zoroastrianism, through Navjote ceremonies, the children of Parsi women and non-Parsi men.
While I completely understand that when Zoroastrians fled Iran after the Arab-Muslim invasion and came as refugees to India, there was a self-imposed injunction to preserve the community — presumably to perpetrate the religion and protect it from mergers, dissipation and disappearance. Fair enough. But what this preservative policy resulted in was a sort of racism and most devastatingly a rapid, now exponential, decrease in the numbers of “pure Parsis”, and therefore of the followers of the Zoroastrian faith.
It ought to be obvious that there were no Zoroastrians before Zoroaster preached his monotheistic doctrine. So, the first Zoroastrians were “converts”? And so were the populations of Iran and later Assyria, Azerbaijan, etc, who were converted through consent during, and by virtue of, the conquests of the Zoroastrian emperors. Conversion, conversion, conversion.
So why not now? You MPP trustees must realise that the number of Zoroastrians is in severe decline because of this traditional insistence that Parsis are a race and not a religion. As the Bombay high court has ruled, a religion doesn’t have policemen — it’s a matter of an individual’s faith. Of course, any individual on earth, of whatever race and ancestry, can believe in the Zoroastrian tenets of “humata-hukta-huvereshta”, and even learn some Zoroastrian prayers. You will, on the present evidence, not consider them Zoroastrians, far less admit them to the “Parsi community”.
My suggestion, if you insist on racial purity being a criterion for membership of the faith, is that you switch from persecuting Parsi priests to form a militant strategy to reconvert the population of Iran from Islam to Zoroastrianism. There you’ll have it: millions of racially pure Zoroastrians if you succeed.
The very modest alternative to combat the “endangered species” decline in numbers is first, to recognise the children of Parsi mothers, regardless of the religion or ethnicity of the fathers, as Parsis. The more drastic solution is, as I’ve argued in this very column before, to sell the real estate on which the Towers of Silence stand in Mumbai and use the crores thus raised to recruit “baby mothers” from anywhere in the world and furnish them with flats, a car and an income to interact with Parsi fathers of their choice and make a baby every two years. Sorted!
And please ban Nietzsche’s THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA from our libraries and temples. It is not an exposition of the prophet’s doctrine but the atheist existentialist Nietzsche’s use of the persona of the inventor of God to retract and denounce his existence….
Your humble savant,
Farrukh Dhondy
Nietzche has little to no credibility for me, not only for his ignorance about Zarathustra, but such wisdom-simulating pseudoprofundities as “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” His war against Richard Wagner because he was offended by how the Ring Cycle of music dramas exposed the economic Darwinism of capitalism’s renunciation of love to conquer the world and its fatal consequences further disqualifies him as a philosopher.
Absolutely agree with your arcticle.
The Bombay Parsi Panchayat has long thought if itself as the global ruling body of not only the Parsi community but also Zoroastrians in all parts if the world.
This is completely wrong for the reasons stated in your article. They are now doing untold damage to the future of the community.
We need more open minded Zoroastrians to show their thoughts
Don’t be so open minded that your brains fall out.
Totally agree. Allowing intermarriage and conversion would be a great start.
Await BPPs response
Such a small community of ours and yet such a large exposé of hate, ignorance and pretentiousness floating around that one wonders whether people can indeed be deep down so entrenched in their lack of spirituality that they twist and turn the Truth to try to get what they want. I call such an unfortunate bunch in the form of humans, spiritually blind people. Interestingly enough, Firdausi in his epic, the Shahnameh, suggests that people with these characteristics could very well be referred to as ‘Daevs’. So, there we are! Now that I have described to the best of my ability the kind of people we are facing amidst our small community, let me rationalize my thoughts in this context.
Let me address each of the points made in the above article penned by Mr. Dhondy:
It is foolish to think and more so to write that sky burial is not a tenet of the religion. Refer to Fargard five and Fargard eight of the Vendidad and you will learn that under the funerals and purification law it is clearly stated that worshippers of Ahura Mazda will have to look for a Dakhma (which is open to the sky) for the corpse to be laid down. The rationale of this is to avoid the pollution of the holy creations of fire, water, and Earth. However, the wealthy who did not practice exposure, avoided the pollution of the holy creations of fire, water and Earth by first embalming the corpse and placing it in a solid coffin, and only then entombing it, often in a stone (rock-cut) sepulcher. The royal Achaemenid tombs were thus prepared because of wishing to obey in a practical way the ordinance of the Vendidad. Hence, these tombs must be classified as special astōdāns/ossuaries, and in fact the Aramaic inscription carved on the tomb of Darius the Great seems to attest the very term “stwd”, as researched by archaeologists decoding the Achaemenid cuneiform inscriptions. In case that the author is perhaps trying to infer that if tombs are allowed, then other forms of disposal such as cremation should be a non-issue. That assumption would be totally incorrect as cremation does contravene the rules of the Vendidad, which is not to pollute the creations of fire, water, and Earth.
It is important to note that there is a strong linkage between the religion of the Parsis and their ethnicity. This established fact has a living record left inscribed in stone at Naqsh-e-Rostam by the Achaemenid king, Darius the Great, where he referred to himself as an ‘Aryan of Aryan stock’ (Āriya Āriya chiçā). He has further stated that ‘Ahura Mazda is the God of the Aryans’ (Auramazda nap harriyanum). Thus, from Achaemenid times, it is considered that Zoroastrianism is an ethnic religion. Let me clarify in simple terms, Parsis ethnicity is originally from Iran and therefore the religion, Zoroastrianism is the religion of people known as Parsis. Not being aware of what BPP had claimed in their court suit, and if indeed what the write-up suggests is true, then the stance by BPP doesn’t make sense. Quite frankly, I’m confused as to where the race card comes in this discussion. In any event, there should be no debate on the fact that ethnicity and religion are closely linked together when one deals with Zoroastrianism.
Talking about self-imposed injunction to preserve the community when we arrived from Iran may be correct but not for the convenient reason that the author of the article wants it to mean. In anyway they can, the reformists are known to grasp straws and then pick one to see if they can twist around the fact in their favor. This initiative of ensuring that the community’s ethnicity is preserved was rightfully employed by our knowledgeable and religiously inclined ancestors at the time because they wished to continue with the practice of preservation, as very eloquently articulated in our sacred Vendidad. Besides, it’s ludicrous to say that because the Parsi community has dwindled in numbers, in a large part due to intermarriages, that one complains as though the long-standing tenet of our religious purity is flawed. That’s indeed absurd!
Our seemingly “humble savant” of the article appears to be totally unaware of the contents and their meanings within our several religious texts, when he naively wonders whether the Zarathushtis during the time of Zarathushtra were converts. First off, one ought to know that Zarathushtra did not introduce the religion, but he reformed the existing Mazdayasni beliefs at the time and therefore it is called Mazdayasni Zarathushti religion. The population of Iran at the time were Mazdayasnis and they worshipped different deities including Ahura Mazda. Amongst other precepts, Zarathushtra established the concept that Ahura Mazda was the one and only supreme God. So, stating that the first Zoroastrian were converts sadly reflects the author’s ignorance on the subject matter. The author also ought to understand that the term ‘convert’ refers to one converting from one established religion to another. When talking about Assyria, Azerbaijan, and other areas in the vicinity, that was not the case, as none of them had a religion, but had a belief system that was similar, and likely even a direct variation of, the Mazdayasni beliefs – and that cannot be termed as conversion per se. Besides, instituting some of those nomads who had no religion into Zoroastrianism by Prophet Zarathushtra Himself or His disciples and Mobeds at the time, cannot be termed as “conversion” as one can never question the actions of the Prophet and/or His close pupils.
In closing, our humble savant who has failed in his theological and historical knowledge as demonstrated through his article may want to read the following explanation of Vendidad Fargard 18.62 which deals with mixed marriages:
THE PRINCIPLE THAT MARRIAGE SHOULD OCCUR EXCLUSIVELY WITHIN THE MAZDAYASNIAN FOLD IS THE ESSENCE OF AHURA MAZDA’S PROCLAMATION TO ASHO ZARATHUSHTRA IN VENDIDAD XVIII-62. Accordingly, this becomes a tenet of the Ahurian religion and an intrinsic element of Zarathushtrian Religious Law – applicable to all adherents of the faith from age to age. Even though other faiths now exist beyond the twofold Mazdayasna-Daevayasna milieu of the United Aryan era, the basic principle of marriage within the fold does not change. It extends to all religiously mixed unions between Mazdayasnians and persons belonging to any other religious community, regardless of whether the partner from the other faith is of higher or lower spiritual caliber. In other words, what we now commonly refer to as “mixed marriages” remains out of bounds for those who profess the Zarathushtrian Religion.
As with everything in the pristine Religion of Zarathushtra, the antipathy towards mixed marriages (asserted not only in Pak Vendidad but in our other religious texts too) is based on the highest understanding of the universal divine laws of nature. It is beyond our present scope, however, to explain the profound esoteric principles, such as Jiram and Paevand, that underlie the prohibition. Suffice it to say that it is in accord with precise evolutionary laws based on Asha (Righteous Order), and not by chance or fluke, that souls with similar spiritual needs and make-up are grouped at birth, in an orderly and ordained manner, into specific religious communities. To consider the phenomenon of birth to be an “accident of nature” or a random drop by the proverbial stork is to deny the Law of Asha itself. Furthermore, the Zarathushtrian Religion’s prohibition on interfaith marriages – which violate pre-defined religious boundaries – is as much an expression of concern for its own healthy preservation as it is a recognition of the need for every other religion to go its own way without interference. In sum, the interdiction of mixed marriages is in keeping with Ahura Mazda’s masterplan for the efficient spiritual evolution of diverse groups of pluralistic humankind.
Ervad Jal Dastur
I agree and support Farrukh. Don’t leave on BPP, community should decide
Question for Ervad Jal Dastur
Wouldn’t you say that the mother carry’s the child in her womb for 9 months and therefore 100% sure the child is hers and anyone could be a father!!!!
Your thoughts on adopting a child
Duh – Please be more specific – I simply don’t understand your question. Thx. Jal
Fire as such is a great leveller – creator and destroyer!! It creates warmth, light and is a source of energy. Zoroastrians preach fire as a son of God – very true!! However, not all or any fire is worthy of worship – Fire is a destroyer too!! Would you start merely praying if God forbid, your house is on fire? Would you not try to run out of the house as fast as possible? Would you ask the fire fighters not to douse the destructive fire, because you are a fire worshipper? Similarly, if you are praying in front of a funeral pyre of any of your non-Parsis acquaintance, you are praying for the progress of his/her soul, and to God to give strength to the bereaved family members, to bear the loss; you are not praying to the fire of the funeral pyre – right?
The fire in the chamber of an electric crematorium is an outcome of high electric voltage – the fire thus created is not worshipped. It has no religious significance or importance. It is merely a medium to destroy the physical corpse after the soul of the deceased has left for higher realms.
Our religious texts and scholars have detail explanations of how fires, worthy of worship, in our Agiarys and Atash-behrams were consecrated – so not all fires are holy and worthy of veneration.
Zoroastrianism is a practical and dynamic religion – the practices have evolved over time – the Dokhmenashini, as practiced in Iran – which is to a major extent, a mountainous country – (there are two major mountain ranges – Alborz Mountains and Zagros Mountains) – cannot be relevant in India. For example, take the Mumbai Dungarwadi – agreed it is a forested area, and the corpse is exposed to sun but what during the rainy season – again vultures which are a secondary means of corpse disposal within the well are MISSING!! Forget their population dwindling due to use of Diclofenac – that’s an academic study by ornithologists. Vultures are wide-winged wild birds, which cannot be domesticated like parrots and mynas – they do not survive in the din of urban concrete jungle surrounding the Mumbai Dungarwadi. With multiple towers and corresponding noise and light pollution, these birds, anyways would have disappeared to denser forested locations, Diclofenac notwithstanding.
Would our Prophet Zarathustra, were He alive today, approved of the crazy battle of the community over the issue of the Dead? Would he not have found an alternative method for corpse disposal? The epic proportions of this battle, would have some unaware believe that our survival depends on the method of corpse disposal – crazy, isn’t it?
Parsees are respected, among other things, as an educated community – however we are displaying that we have mere theoretical knowledge when it comes to education. Are we not capable and wise enough to find practical dynamic solutions to problems we face with changing times/situations? Comments
Zoroastrians must not preach Fire as a son of God in its literal sense. One may get confused with the sentence, “Āthro Ahurahe Mazdāo puthra”. Here, in this verse of Atash Niyaish, as per the scholar Edulji Kanga, here is the actual interpretation:
“Puthra” (Sanskrit “putra”) – the ordinary meaning of the word is “son” but the meaning of this word in this Nyāyesh everywhere derived from the Sanskrit root pu- (= to purify, to render pure) is “source of purifying, cleaning” and I have thought it proper to translate “purifier” deriving from it.
Essentially, it means that Fire is the purifier of all things pertaining to Ahura Mazda.