Note 28 — Chapter I · The Exodus of the Parsis

From the narrations of different travellers it would seem that the Parsis had settled in a great many cities of Upper India; but it is impossible to say whether these came from Western India or from Persia. A Mahomedan traveller of the tenth century, Al Isthakhri, mentions several parts of India as being occupied by the Guebres: that is the name given by Mahomedan writers to the Parsis. An unexceptionable testimony of their presence at Dehra-Dun (1079) is furnished to us in the attack of Ibrahim the Ghaznevid against a colony of fire-worshippers living in that place. Similarly we find the Parsis in the Panjaub before 1178, if we are to believe the tradition of a voyage made that year by a Parsi priest named Mahyar; he had come from Uch, a town situated on the conflux of the five rivers of the Panjaub, to Seistan in Persia, in order to acquire a thorough knowledge of the religious rites. After six years of study under the Dastoors he brought into India, in 1184, a copy of the Pehlvi translation of the Vendidad.28 It seems also that there must have been some intercourse between the Parsis of Cambay and those of the Panjaub, since, in 1328, the former were in possession of some copies of the Vendidad acquired by Mahyar.