Volume 1 / Part 1 — Pārsi or Zoroastrian Religion
Reading edition
[Bibliography of works quoted: Dr. Martin Haug’s Essays on the Pārsis, Trübner’s Oriental Series; Bombay Gazetteer, vol. ix. part ii., Pārsis of Gujarāt. by the late Mr. Kharsedji Nasarvanji Seervai, J.P., and Khān Bahādur Bāmanji Behrāmji Patel; M. Salomon Reinach’s Orphéus; Rev. J. Murray Mitchell’s Great Religions of India. The whole account of the customs and social life of the Pārsis is taken from the excellent description in the Bombay Gazetteer.]
List of Paragraphs
1. Introductory.
2. The Zoroastrian religion.
3. The Zend-Avesta.
4. The Zend Avesta and the Vedas.
5. Reasons for the schism between the Persian and Indian Aryans.
6. The dual principles and the conflict between good and evil.
7. The dual principle derived from the antagonism of light and darkness.
8. The Zoroastrians in Persia.
9. Their migration to India and settlement there.
10. Their wealth and prosperity.
11. Marriage customs.
12. Religion. Worship of fire.
13. The Homa liquor.
14. Pārsi priests.
15. The sacred shirt and cord.
16. Disposal of the dead.
17. Previous exposure of the dead, and migration of souls.
18. Clothes, food and ceremonial observances.
1. Introductory.
2. The Zoroastrian religion.
3. The Zend-Avesta.
4. The Zend Avesta and the Vedas.
5. Reasons for the schism between the Persian and Indian Aryans.
6. The dual principles and the conflict between good and evil.
7. The dual principle derived from the antagonism of light and darkness.
8. The Zoroastrians in Persia.
9. Their migration to India and settlement there.
10. Their wealth and prosperity.
11. Marriage customs.
12. Religion. Worship of fire.
The religious ritual of the Pārsis consists of the worship of fire. The fire temples are of a single storey and contain three rooms. On reaching the outer hall the worshipper washes his face, hands and feet, and recites a prayer. Then, carrying a piece of sandalwood and some money for the officiating priest, he passes to the inner hall, in which a carpet is spread. He takes off his shoes and rings one of four brass bells hanging at the corners of the room. The priest also rings one of these bells at each watch when he performs worship. He then proceeds to the threshold of the central fire-room, kneels there, and again standing begins to recite prayers. None may enter the fire-room except the priests. Here the fire is kept always blazing in a silver or copper urn on a solid stone pedestal, and is fed day and night with sandal and other commoner woods. A priest is always present, dressed in long white robes, his hands covered with white cloths and his face veiled. The worshipper lays down his offering of sandalwood at the entrance, and the priest takes it up with a pair of tongs, and gives him some ashes from the urn in a silver or brass ladle. These the worshipper rubs on his forehead and eyebrows. On concluding his prayers, which are in the Avesta language, he walks backward to where he left his shoes and goes home. A Pārsi man never allows his hearth fire to go out, and if he changes his residence he carries it with him to the next place of abode.
13. The Homa liquor.
14. Pārsi priests.
15. The sacred shirt and cord.
16. Disposal of the dead.
17. Previous exposure of the dead, and migration of souls.
Some of these customs are peculiar and interesting. It has been seen that for three days the home is impure, and no food is cooked in it except what is given to dogs; and since on the third day offerings are made on the spot where the body lay, it seems to be supposed that the dead man’s spirit is still there. On the fourth day is the funeral feast, in which all relations and friends join, and after this the house becomes pure, it being presumably held that the dead man’s spirit has taken its departure. For these three days food is cooked in the house and given to dogs, and immediately after the man is dead a dog is brought in to look at his face. It has been suggested that the manner of laying out the body recalls the time when it was simply exposed. But when it was exposed the body would have been devoured principally by dogs and vultures, and the customs connected with dogs seem to arise from this. The cooked food given to dogs for three days is perhaps a substitute for the flesh of the dead man which they would have eaten, and the display of the body to a dog is in substitution for its being devoured by these animals, who now that it is exposed in a tower of silence no longer have access to it. It has further been seen how during the marriage rites, after an invitation has been issued to the ancestors to attend, a woman comes in barking like a dog. The other women drive her away and laughingly eat everything they can lay their hands on, perhaps in imitation of the way dogs devour their food. This custom seems to indicate that the Pārsis formerly believed that the spirits of their ancestors went into the dogs which devoured their bodies, a belief which would be quite natural to primitive people. Such a hypothesis would explain the peculiar customs mentioned, and also the great sanctity which the Pārsis attach to dogs. On the same analogy they should apparently also have believed that the spirits of ancestors went into vultures; but it is not recorded that they show any special veneration for these birds, though it must be almost certain that they do not kill them. The explanation given for the custom of the exposure of the dead is that none of the holy elements, earth, fire or water, can be polluted by receiving dead bodies. But, as already stated, towers of silence cannot be a primitive institution, and the bodies in all probability were previously exposed on the ground. The custom of exposure probably dates from a period prior to the belief in the extreme sanctity of the earth. It may have been retained in order that the spirits of ancestors might find a fresh home in the animals which devoured their bodies; and some platform, from which the towers of silence subsequently developed, may have been made to avoid defilement of the earth; while in after times this necessity of not defiling the earth and other elements might be advanced as a reason justifying the custom of exposure.
18. Clothes, food and ceremonial observances.
Temple of Siva at Bāndakpur, near Damoh