Note 27 — Chapter III · Population—Costumes—Usages—Festivals

This is how Anquetil Duperron relates the incidents of this memorable struggle:28 “About forty-six years ago there came from Kirman a very clever Dastoor named Djamasp. He had been sent to re-unite the Parsis divided on the question of the Penom, a double piece of cloth with which the Parsis, on certain occasions, cover a part of the face. Some wished that it should be placed on the dead, others did not like this. Djamasp decided in favour of the latter, according to the custom of Kirman. If this Dastoor had not made the voyage to India, this frivolous contest would have caused streams of blood to flow.

“Djamasp is believed to have examined the Vendidad, which was current in Gujerat. He found the Pehlvi translation of it too long and not correct in several places. Ignorance was the predominating vice of the Parsis of India. In order to remedy it, the Dastoor of Kirman formed some disciples, Darab at Surat, Djamasp at Naosari, and a third at Bharooch, to whom he taught Zend and Pehlvi. Some time after, tired of the contradictions which he had to endure, he returned to Kirman. The books which this Dastoor has left in India are an exact copy of the Zend and Pehlvi Vendidad, the Feroueschi, the translation of the Vadjerguerd, and the Nerenguestan. These two works are in Persian, mixed with Zend, and purely on ceremonials.

“Darab, the first disciple of Djamasp, and a Dastoor Mobed perfect in the knowledge of Zend and Pehlvi, wished to correct the Pehlvi translation of the Vendidad and rectify some portions of the Zend Text, which appeared to him either to have been transposed or to present useless repetitions. He began explaining to young Parsi theologians the works of Zoroaster, which the Mobeds read every day without understanding them. An enslaved people who for a long time practised a thousand ceremonies, the sense and reason of which they were ignorant of, would naturally fall into innumerable abuses. This was what Darab, more learned than the others, observed. The purifications were multiplied; the Zend text was inundated with Pehlvi commentaries, often very inconsistent. Darab at first attempted the way of instruction. But he found a powerful adversary in the person of Manscherdji, the chief of the party who did not like reform, and himself the son of a Mobed.

“Another subject of division animated them again, one against the other. Darab had for his father Kaous, of whom I have spoken before, who had received from Dastoor Djamasp the first smatterings of astronomy, according to the principles of Oulough Beg. This Dastoor Mobed having been perfected since then under another Parsi come from Kirman about thirty-six years ago, showed by the Tables of Oulough Beg that the Nao rouz (the first day of the year) ought to be advanced by a month, and that consequently there had been an error till then. A letter of the Dastoors of Yezd, dated the 22nd of the month Aban, of the year 1111 of Yezdezard (1742, A.D.) and brought by the Parsi Espendiar, confirmed the discovery of Kaous, but did not tend to protect him from the hatred of his compatriots. It went so far that Darab, sixteen or seventeen years ago, was obliged to withdraw to Damann amongst the Portuguese, and Kaous to Cambay among the English. When I arrived at Surat, almost all the Parsis of India followed the party of Manscherdji because he was rich and powerful; Darab, whose knowledge was recognised even by his adversaries, had some disciples who, in the sequel, showed themselves more freely when the authority of Manscherdji had been lowered at Surat with that of the Dutch, whose agent he was.”