Origins of the Parsi priesthood

The Sasanian empire came to a formal end with the murder of Yazdegird III at Merv in 651 CE, but it was not until 200 years or more had passed that a group of devout Zoroastrians from Kohistan in the northeast of Iran found the ever-increasing religious persecution too much to bear and resolved to seek freedom of worship elsewhere. They traveled south to the port of Hormuz on the Persian Gulf, also known as Moghistan, place of the magi, i.e. Zoroastrian priests, and eventually secured a ship and sailed eastward, men, women and children. Their first halt was at the port of Diu in Kathiawad, where they are said to have stayed for 19 years. From there they sailed again towards the southern part of Gujarat, but met with a dreadful hurricane in the middle of the sea. The faithful devotees of Ahura Mazda stood up and prayed to Him to deliver them from this calamity. If they reached unhurt the shores of Gujarat, they vowed that they would consecrate a sacred fire in honor of Bahram, the god of victory, who helps and protects the devout in perilous journeys. Their sincere prayers were speedily answered, and the violent storm subsided. The founding fathers of the Parsi community reached the shores of southern Gujarat in Vikram Samvat 992, i.e. 936 CE. They named their newly-founded colony after Sanjan, a town in the Khwaf district of Kohistan, from where they originally came.

In fulfilment of the vow taken on the high seas, the Parsi settlers began to make preparations for installing a sacred fire on the soil of their new haven, Sanjan. They sent two priests overland to Khorasan to undergo the purificatory ablu­tions (barashnom) and to bring back with them the alat [ritual implements necessary for consecrating a sacred fire, specifically the fire-ash of an atash bahram, consecrated bull’s urine (nirangdin) and the hair of a sacred unblemished white bull]. Other Khorasani priests, well-versed in executing such holy works, accompanied them on their return to Sanjan where, in accordance with the dictates of the religion, they consecrated the sacred fire and installed it in about the middle of the 10th century CE. For about three centuries, the Parsis lived together in Sanjan. When their numbers grew, members of both the clergy and laity began to move away towards the northern part of Gujarat, and to establish colonies there.

Priests naturally formed the backbone of the group of Parsis who came to India in 936 CE. Their early history down to the time of Shapur Shahriyar, the common ancestor of almost all Parsi priests, is irretrievable. Besides Shapur Shahriyar, the ancient commemorative list of departed worthies contains the names of Hormazdyar Ramyar and Neryosang Dhaval, his grandsons, from whom the priests of four major groups trace their lineage. Of these two grandsons of Shapur Shahriyar, Neryosang Dhaval is celebrated as a Sanskrit scholar who lived in Sanjan in the latter part of the 12th century. (A later legend mistakenly regards Neryosang Dhaval as the leader of the group who consecrated the Atash Bahram in Sanjan, although Bahman Kekobad, the learned Sanjana priest who wrote the Qissa-e Sanjan in Navsari in 1599 CE, does not mention him at all when he de­scribes the installation of the Sanjan Atash Bahram. Erroneously considering Neryosang to have been the leader of the group, the Parsi priests remember his name in ceremonies by prefixing the old Persian title ‘Mobad’ to it. The same practice is followed in the case of Neryosang’s cousin Hormazdyar Ramyar and his grand­father Shapur Shahriyar, although this may be due to Hormazdyar and Ner­yo­sang both having a son named Mobad.)

Among the Parsis who migrated northwards from Sanjan, there was a band who settled in the little town of Navsari in about 1275. Zarthosht Mobad, a grandson of Hormazdyar Ramyar, accompanied them together with his two sons, Kamdin and Mobad, to cater to their religious needs. (Zarthosht Mobad first established a dar-i mihr in a small, modest house which, in course of time, became well-known as the Great Dar-i Mihr or Vadi Dar-i Mihr. Priests of all denominations took pride in being ini­tiated there. They also use the alat consecrated in this oldest and most prestigious dar-i mihr of India.) Afterwards, Zarthosht’s younger brother, Bahram Mobad, left Sanjan for Bharuch (Broach) with another batch of Parsis, to become eventually the ancestor of the Bhar­ucha priests. In Navsari, Pahlan Mobad, a grandson of Zarthosht Mobad, chose to go to Surat and eventually became the ancestor of the Godavra priests. (The region between the river Tapi and Narmada is generally known as the godaru, and the priests living in it are called godavra.) At the end of the 14th century, the Parsi population of Navsari increased considerably, and the descendants of Kamdin Zarthosht had to employ another priest, named Hom Bah­man­yar, from Sanjan. Bahmanyar came to Navsari with his only son Faredun as an em­ployee of the descendants of Kamdin Zarthosht, but continued also to serve the Sanjan Atash Bahram with his son. After some years, the descendants of his brother Hormazdyar Bah­manyar in Sanjan objected to their earning a livelihood in two places, and asked Faredun and his two sons to work either in Navsari or in Sanjan. Faredun and his sons referred their case to their employers and indicated their willingness to settle permanently in Navsari and forgo their right to serve the Atash Bahram in Sanjan, provided that the descendants of Mobad Kamdin, headed by Pahlan Anna (the honorific title of ‘Kaka’ was applied to Pahlan Anna who lived long and was a much respected man in his time) and Kaka Dhanpal (the father of the famous schol­ar-priest Asdin Kaka. Kaka is here a proper name) agreed to divide the share from the proceeds of ceremo­nies equally between themselves and the three sons of Faredun in perpetuity. The family members of Pahlan Anna and Kaka Dhanpal agreed to this proposal, and the three sons of Faredun Hom became equal partners with them, to be called thereafter the Bhagaria or Bhagar­sath, i.e. the co-sharers. These five priests became the lineal ancestors of all Bhagaria priests, forming, as it were, five family groups or stocks, called pols (Gujarati pol: ‘a street, a lane’). A leading member from each of the five pols held an important religious office conferred on him by the Bhagarsath Anjoman. The five offices are:

•The head of the Kaka Pahlan stock made the heir of a deceased person recite the formula of sosh on the third day after death, in the presence of an assembly. (The senior priest formerly used to recite a short formula named sosh, a shortened form of srosh, exhorting the eldest son to have the srosh ceremonies performed for the benefit of the departed soul.)

•The head of the Kaka Dhanpal stock acted as custodian of the consecrated bull’s urine (nirangdin). (This right has since been conferred on the Kotwal family belonging to the Asha Faredun stock.)

•The head of the Asha Faredun stock conducted the penitentiary prayer (patet) in an assembly gathered to honor the departed soul on the third day after death. (This right has since been transferred to Meherji Rana on his appointment as High Priest.)

•The head of the Mahyar Faredun stock gave permission for initia­tions into priesthood, called nawar and maratab, and a member of his family was entitled to conduct the first day of the nawar ceremony.

•The head of the Chanda Faredun stock maintained records and preserved documents for the Anjoman’s archives.

These five offices seem to have been allocated in about the middle of the 15th century and remained in this way until 1579, when the whole Anjoman of Navsari appointed Meherji Rana as the first High Priest (Vada Dastur) of India.

By the middle of the 15th century the priests seem to have settled comfortably in groups within different regions of Gujar­at. In order to safeguard the interests of each group, the elders met together in conference in Sanjan and established five priest­ly jurisdictions, called panthaks, demarcated by rivers. They all agreed that no priest would ever perform any ceremony, even for himself, in a panthak that did not belong to him. The five divi­sions of the panthak were made in the following way:

•Sanjana priests: from the river Dantora to the river Par.

•Bhagaria priests: from the river Par to the river Tapi.

•Godavra priests: from the river Tapi to the river Narmada.

•Bharucha priests: from the river Narmada to the river Mahi.

•Khambata priests: from the river Mahi to the river Sabarmati.

Neither the original covenant signed by the elders of the five priestly groups nor its copy exists today. The agreements made in subsequent centuries between different groups of priests bear out that the priests in general fully respected the covenant and regarded it as sacrosanct. The oldest existing document which reflects this state of affairs is dated 1543 CE. It is an agree­ment between the whole Anjoman (which included both the Bhagaria priests and laymen) of Navsari and the Sanjana Anjoman, and it spells out the priestly jurisdictions of two major groups of priests, the Sanjanas and Bhagarias.

In the latter half of the 15th century, Sanjan fell on evil days on account of the devastating attack by the armies of Sultan Mahmud Begada of Gujarat in 1465 CE. In order to protect the sacred fire against possible sacrilege by the Muslim conquerors, the valiant Sanjana priests carried their most precious posses­sion to the mountain fastness of Bahrot about 14 miles to the south of Sanjan, and hid the fire in a cave-dwelling with wind­ows, doors and pillars, already carved out of the steep rocks. After a brief stay in the Bahrot hill, the Atash Bahram was taken to Bansda, and then, through the good offices of Changa Asha, a wealthy layman of Navsari, it was carried to Navsari in about 1479. The three courageous priests who brought the sacred fire to Navsari were Khurshed Kamdin, Nagan Ram and Chaiyyan Shaer, from whom the nine existing families of Sanjana priests are descended. They still enjoy the exclusive right to serve the sacred fire.

With the enthronement of the sacred fire in Navsari, both the Sanjana and Bhagaria priests began to live amicably, helping each other in the affairs of the religion and respecting the covenant entered into by their elders more than a century before. The presence of the sacred fire, housed in a building provided by the Bhagarsath Anjoman, added luster to the fair name of Navsari, which now became in its own right the headquarters of both the Sanjanas and Bhagarias. Because of the calamities which had befallen the Sanjana priests in Sanjan and its vicinity, their economic condition became straitened. They asked the Bhagarsath Anjoman to help them by giving them the diocese of the town (not the whole region) of Bulsar. The Bhagaria priests came to their rescue at this difficult time and granted them the diocese of Bulsar. The Sanjana Anjoman of Navsari sent Shapur Rana to serve the Parsi community there. Because of a quarrel between two groups of laity, another dar-i mihr seems to have been estab­lished in Bulsar under the charge of Jamasp Bhaiji, a Sanjana priest. In course of time, the descendants of Shapur Rana and Jamasp Bhaiji began to manage the affairs of Bulsar independently from the Sanjana Anjo­man, refusing to pay the ecclesiastical dues, and consequently they lost their right to serve the sacred fire.

In the last quarter of the 17th century, there arose in Navsari a deadly feud between the Bhagarias and a few lay members of the Parsi community called the Behdins ("those of the Good Religion”). For the sake of supervision and equitable distribution of religious work amongst the priests, the Bhagarsath Anjoman of Navsari passed a resolution in 1672 directing the priests to perform certain major ceremonies according to their turns in and around Navsari, as also in other distant parishes such as Bombay and the nearby Parsi settlements like Chaul, Kalyan, Bhimardi and Thana. The Behdins of Navsari did not approve of the mandate issued by the Bhagarsath Anjoman to the priests and resolved in a meeting in 1673 that they would have ceremonies of their households performed by priests of their own choice. This stance of the Behdins infuriated the Bhagarias, and in course of time things took an ugly turn culminating in the murder of two Bhagaria priests in 1686 at a public place called Tarota. This dastardly act of murder agitated the Bhagarias so much that they, in their agony, killed six Behdins in reta­liation. The influential Behdins convicted 12 Bhagarias on charges of murder and had them imprisoned in Surat. Later on, they were released from jail through the good offices of Kunverji Nanabhai Modi, the great leader of the Parsi community at Surat, and were sent back home safely to Navsari. In order to implement effectively their resolution of 1673, the Behdins won over to their side a dissident Bhagaria priest, Minocheher Homji, who began to act as a family priest of the Behdins with the help of his three sons. In order to earn a living with ease and comfort, three more Bhagaria priests, viz. Meherji Chandna (surnamed Kakalia, belonged to the Kaka Pahlan stock), Dada Chandji (surnamed Dadachanji, belonged to the Asha Faredun stock) and Peshotan Sohrab (surnamed Rabadi, belonged to the Asha Faredun stock) followed suit and joined the Minocheher Homji fold, which now began to be called the Chaharo Sath (United Four in Gujarati).

Despite the unstinted support and lucrative help offered by the Behdins to the United Four, the Bhagarias were successful in 1731 in getting a charter from Gangaji Rao, the governor of Navsari, and Pilaji Rao Gaekwad (1730-1732), the ruler of Gujar­at. The charter upheld the legitimate and sole right of the Bhagarias to perform marriage and other ceremonies of their clientele within their own jurisdiction. This gave a serious jolt to the priests aligned to the United Four who, after much deliberation, resolved to merge with their original fold in 1732. The Bhagarias welcomed the merger bid by the priests of the United Four, and with their characteristic magnanimity, admitted them into the Bhagarsath Anjoman through a mutual agreement made in the Vadi Dar-i Mihr on April 16, 1732. The Behdins of Navsari did not like the reunion of priests, and they instigated the priests of the United Four to break up the covenant, which they gladly did in 1734. In order to safeguard their privileges with honor, the Bhagarias made a petition to Gangaji Rao for preventing the priests of the United Four from encroaching upon their traditional rights. The leading Behdins took up the gauntlet and acted as defendants on behalf of the secessionists. In order to arrive at an amicable solu­tion Gangaji Rao persuaded the leaders of both parties to appoint an arbitration court, comprising 10 respec­table Hindu citizens, to probe thoroughly into the matter. They all agreed to abide by the decision given by the court. The committee of 10 gave its verdict largely in favor of the Bhagarias, although the seces­sionists were recognized as an independent group and the dar-i mihr set up by the Behdins for the use of priests of the United Four was accorded validity. (The second half of the 20th century has witnessed an unpre­cedented shortage of priests. In order to tide over this appalling situation, the Bhagarsath Anjoman una­nimously resolved in a historic meeting held in the Vadi Dar-i Mihr on January 3, 1982, to admit to its fold all priestly groups who had seceded from it in the past.)

For a couple of centuries, all went on well in Navsari between the Sanjanas and Bhagarias. Then, because of an increase in their numbers and disruptive support and encouragement by the Behdins of Navsari, the less disciplined among the Sanjana pri­ests began to break the covenant made by their elders by perform­ing the ceremonies of their own households and of those of the laity who supported their cause and were inimical to the Bhagar­ias. The Bhagaria priests protested, and asked to have an equal share in the proceeds of the Atash Bahram if the Sanjanas wished to persist in performing ceremonies within the priestly jurisdic­tion of the Bhagarias. The Sanjana priests filed a suit against the Bhagarias in the court of the Gaekwad of Baroda, the then ruling authority who was camping at Songarh near Surat at the time. After a few hearings of both sides, the Gaekwad gave his verdict in favor of the Bhaga­rias. The Sanjana priests, who owned some 25 to 30 houses in Navsari, left the town with the sacred fire in 1740 and took shelter in Bulsar. Not finding themselves at ease there, they ultimately established a permanent home for their sacred fire within their own panthak at Udvada in 1742.

To sum up, the Khorasani group who came to Sanjan in 936 CE included priests who established the first Atash Bahram in India with alat brought from Khorasan. After centuries, their descendants dispersed to differ­ent parts of Gujarat and founded five well-defined ecclesiastical regions. All the Zoroastrian priests of India, except those from Khambat (Cambay) whose gene­alogy has not been preserved, trace their descent from a common ancestor, Shapur Shahriyar (see the genealogi­cal tree provided). The priests from Broach, Godavra (including those from Surat) and Navsari (only those priests who belong to the pols of Kaka Pahlan and Kaka Dhanpal) are descended from Hormazdyar Ramyar, the grandson of Shapur Shahriyar; whereas the priests of Navsari who belong to the other three pols and also those surnamed Sanjana and the priests of Bulsar and Udvada are all descended from Neryosang Dhaval, another grandson of Shapur Shahriyar. The spiritual link (silsila) with the Khorasani fire through the con­secrated fire-ash, alat and priests has been maintained unbroken in India. Although the monarchy of Iranian kings has ended, the spiritual kingship of Iran still lives on through Zoroastrian ceremonies. It is hoped that it will be preserved till the time of the resur­rection.

Edited and reprinted with the author’s permission from Irano-Judaica II, edited by Shaul Shaked and Amnon Netzer for the Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem, 1990.

Former high priest of the H. B. Wadia Atas Bahram in Bombay, Dastur (Dr) Firoze M. Kotwal is the author of several books and articles on Zoroastrianism. He was formerly principal of the M. F. Cama Athornan Institute, a visiting lecturer at the School of Oriental and African Studies, Harvard University and a visiting fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge University.