Note 35 — Chapter I · The Exodus of the Parsis

They had much to suffer from this Mahomedan conquest, and therefore many fled to the mountains of Bahrout, eight miles east of Sanjan; the cave where the sacred fire was deposited is still to be seen. According to the Kissah-i-Sanjan, the fugitives remained there only twelve years, after which they quitted this mountainous district and went to Bansdah,35 about fifty miles north-east of Naosari, where a few Parsi families had already settled. Fourteen years later (1331) they bore the sacred fire to Naosari, where their co-religionists were numerous and influential. But the date 1419 being generally accepted as the year in which the sacred fire was brought to Naosari, it may be presumed that between the flight of the Parsis from Sanjan and the era of their new independence, a whole century, and not twenty-six years, must have elapsed.