“Zoroastrianism enjoins...”

This has reference to Dara Aria’s letter "Zoroastrianism enjoins...” (Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, March 2002). Ervad Kavasji E. Kanga was a great scholar of repute and to wrongly deduce from his translation of the Nirang of Sarosh Yasht Vadi that conver­sion was permitted and enjoined even during the time of Prophet Zarathushtra is totally absurd, to say the least.

In the dark days of fearful persecution following the Arab conquest, any person caught wearing the kusti (or known to either profess the Zoroastrian faith or even possess Zoroastrian litera­ture) was subject to severe punishment. In fact, it is said that many Parsis were reduced to secretly tying a small piece of the kusti on their upper arms. Therefore, is it logically possible for the conquering Muslim zealots to ever consider donning the kusti, which, in fact, was the hated emblem of the conquered Parsis and their Zoroastrian religion; a symbol that was held in contempt by the conquerors? Is it not absurd to project the fanatical Arab Muslims as being agreeable to be converted into kusti-wearing Zoroastrians?

The interpretation as advocated by Kanga in his book Khordeh Avesta for the enigmatic phrase taziane bastekush-tian, literally meaning Arab kusti-wearers was not wrong per se, and, at best, can be described as contextually inappropriate and therefore misleading. According to the explanation offered by the likes of the late Ervad (Prof) Rustom Dinshah Dastur Meherjirana and educationist Bejon Desai, the Pazand word taziane means (in the figurative sense) the leader or the foremost person of a certain group of people. The term bastekushtian means the bin­ders/tiers (wearers) of the kusti — the kusti being the sacred talismanic thread bestowed by Sarosh Yazad on Shah Jamshid some 11,000 years ago which, in fact, is regarded as being synonymous with the Aryan-Parsi race for whom it is mandatory to don the kusti (and sudreh) in their lifetime as well as in death.

Therefore the correct scholarly interpretation offered for the term taziane bastekushtian is: "the leaders of those who wear the kusti” and certainly not as misrepresented by Aria to suggest that conversion was permitted and enjoined even during the time of Prophet Zara-thushtra.

ADIL J. GOVADIA

Bangalore