“A tendency to lose the roots”

He knows Avestan, Pahlavi and Sanskrit, Sogdian and Parthian. Not Bactrian which has only recently been introduced to academia by Prof Simms Williams. Not Khotenese which needs a strong Saka background and has only recently come to light, mainly from Buddhist sources. Not Hindi: "My Hindi is only enough for taxi drivers!” Dr Carlo Cereti modestly circumscribes his linguistic attainments.

Coming, as he says, from a family of chemists and legal experts, Cereti displays a non-genetic fixation on matters oriental, primarily Middle Persian languages and literatures. Currently a research fellow in Iranian studies at Wien University, Cereti’s MA thesis on Iranian and Central Asian religions had been prepared under the tutorship of scholar Prof Gernaldo Gnoli at the University of Naples; his doctoral dissertation on the Bahman Yasht had been accepted by the Ministero dell’ Universita at Rome. Since then he has been conducting courses on Zoroastrian religious literature at Rome University’s La Sapienza institute, as notes his bio data in the souvenir published by the KRCOI (K. R. Cama Oriental Institute) at the Third International Congress (see "A clearing house of ideas” page 192).

At this scholars’ meet he had reassessed the main surviving manuscript sources of the Bundahisn, a cosmological commentary derived from Avestan texts. Discussing the relative merits of the Iranian and Indian versions of the Bundahisn, Cereti explained that the Indian one is shorter, omitting Zurvanite passages found in the Iranian manuscripts. "Sometimes the Indian one makes better sense; sometimes the Iranian one. My idea is that the Iranian version is closer to the (lost) original. Eventually it is a guess — nothing more!” exclaims the genial scholar. He maintains that the more "densely speculative” Bundahisn gives a better idea of what Sasanian theology was like than the Dinkard which is "not as dense.”

In his vote of thanks to the KRCOI at the valedictory session of the Congress the gentle Italian recalled how he had first come to India when he was "more than 20 years younger and more than 20 kg lighter.” He noted nostalgically how KRCOI trustee-secretary Homai Modi had "introduced me to books, to manuscripts.” With equal measures of joy and gratitude he recalled Dastur (Dr) Kaikhusroo JamaspAsa’s parting gift at the end of that trip — a copy of all the publications of the KRCOI.

Since then, as Cereti told Parsiana, he has been coming to India every two years with two destinations in focus — the KRCOI Library in Bombay, and South India to study Persian crosses and bronze leaves with inscriptions in Pahlavi, Judeo-Persian and Arabic in Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Recalling the Sasanian trade relations with the Raja of Quilon — "the Iranian sea trade route extended up to Ceylon and beyond” — Cereti said that these crosses show that Nestorian Christians came from Iran, bringing with them the Middle Persian culture of the time. The Pahlavi language continued in use as late as 11th century AC. These crosses also indicate that "the first settlers were merchants (and that) the Kisseh-e-Sanjan was written later to justify (Zoroastrian presence in India),” he adds. (It is interesting to note that Maharashtra Governor Dr P. C. Alexander had suggested research into these same crosses in his inaugural address to the Second International Congress hosted by the KRCOI in 1995.) Cereti also referred to the Skanda Purana — recount of a Persian settlement of Achaemenian/Mauryan vintage on the coast of Maharashtra. "It speaks of similar ingress (of merchantmen) due to a shipwreck,” he notes.

In response to Parsiana’s query Cereti traced the direction of European research on Zoroastrianism. He noted that scholars like Jean Kellens, Helmut Humbach, Almut Hintze and others who stem from Indo-European studies study the Gathas in comparison with Sanskrit literature and the European tradition. The other tendency is to go to them via the Middle and Old Iranian languages like William Henning and Mary Boyce "who devoted herself completely to Zoroastrianism.” Italian and French scholars like Philippe Gignoux, Frantz Grenet, Dr Antonio Panaino study the sacred texts in the context of culture with particular interest in religion and history. "In recent years, students in Italy and France are more interested in contemporary Zoroastrianism not only in the traditional way of religion and rituals but of a community interesting in itself as part of Bombay society, including its literature, paintings, etc.”

While Cereti said he enjoyed meeting the community at the Congress he observed uneasily "that there is a large part of the community accepting a New Age phase, forgetting the tenets of Zoroastrianism and having a very confused religious idea.” He concedes that the same phenomenon is apparent in Europe vis-à-vis Christianity — "a tendency to lose the roots.”

Pained at the prospect of losing valuable manuscripts because the Indian climate is basically unfriendly to them, Cereti stresses the need to catalogue and reproduce them on CD Rom. The lack of a single source for all Zoroastrian manuscripts means that scholars need to track them to various sources. He recalls a trip two years ago to the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute in Poona which has a small uncatalogued collection of Zoroastrian manuscripts in Avestan, Pahlavi and Persian, unknown to European scholars. There are similar small collections with private individuals in Surat. "It would be nice to know where they are.” At the European research institute IsIAO there is a project to acquire copies of all manuscripts and 100 important manuscripts have already been reproduced so that "if there is a fire or something, the main items are preserved.” Noting that manuscripts were available in Iran up to the beginning of the 20th century, Cereti adds ruefully, "Now not a single one can be found easily... It is so easy to lose a tradition.”