A worldly view

Zoroastrian and Parsi Studies: Selected Works of John R. Hinnells. Published in 2000 by Ashgate Publishing Limited, Gower House, Croft Road, Aldershot, Hants GU11 3HR, England. Pp: 430. Price: £ 40.

John Hinnells has become a legend in his own time through his masterful, insightful studies on the Parsis in colonial and modern times. The volume under review brings together many of his most important published articles on the Parsis in India and around the world. As importantly, readers are treated to Hinnells’ theories on the study of Zoroastrianism. The volume also provides readers with previously published papers on a much more ancient and vexed issue, namely, the influences that Zoroastrianism may have had on Judaism and Christianity. Collection of these essays into a volume within the Variorum reprint series is a fitting tribute to the work of a scholar whose analyses have transformed our understanding of Zoroastrians past and present.

Hinnells: scho­-larly interest

The articles are organized into five sections, A through E, beginning with Theory and Method (pp 5-25), then Zoroastrian Influences on Biblical Imagery (pp 27-92), followed by Parsi History (pp 93-200), Zoroastrianism and the Parsis (pp 201-300), and finally the Parsi Diaspora (pp 301-430). Especially valuable are introductions to each section, where the author himself re-assesses the importance and impact for each work in terms of his scholarship, the academic fields involved, and on occasion the communities concerned. In addition, readers are treated to an hitherto unpublished paper investigating the relationship between injuring and healing by first examining the life and work of Dastur Sohrab Kutar in the context of other notable Parsis involved with medicine and military within India and then by setting those lives within the context of Zoroastrian dualistic theology. The format of Variorum collections does not allow for indices, an omission especially unfortunate in the case of this volume where such information would have facilitated access to Hinnells’ very valuable data.

In the article on "Zoroastrian Saviour Imagery and its Influence on the New Testament,” Hin­nells delineates notions like a cosmic conflict between good and evil, and heaven and hell, that were assimilated into the Inter-Testament writings of Jews and then into the New Testament canon of early Christians. Hinnells then goes on to propose in "Zoroastrian Influence on Judaism and Christianity: Some Further Reflections” how and when the transmission of those and similar ideas may have occurred during Parthian times (ca. 247 BCE-224 CE). Indeed, then the Jewish community witnessed a remarkable flourish of religious thought and literature, ideas that influenced those persons who became the earliest Christians. Dissemination of those ideas would have been spurred by the memory of Alexander’s rapid sweeping aside of the Achae­menian empire (550-331 BCE) (as deduced by S. K. Eddy, The King is Dead: Studies in the Near Eastern Resistance to Hellenism 334-31 BC, Lincoln, 1961). Hinnells’ chronological sugges­tions are supported by evidence such as the biblical book of Esther with its sociopolitical basis for the Jewish festival of Purim, where events within the textual tradition are set back in time to the Achaemenian era. In championing the case for a Zoroastrian base for apocalyptical and eschatological details in other faiths (for after all, the ideas picked up by Jews and Christians also found transmission into other extant religions like Islam and Mandaeism), Hinnells stands with other Iranists such as Shaul Shaked, Mary Boyce, James Russell and myself ("Hagiography and Monotheism: Doctrinal Encounters between Zoroastrianism, Judaism, and Christianity,” Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations, forthcoming), biblical scholars like Jacob Neusner and Yaakov Elman, and historians of religion like James Barr, Andres Hultgerd and Jeffrey Russell.

Ultimately, it is Hinnells’ ongoing historical and statistical research on Zoroastrians worldwide that has carved out for him a unique niche in religious studies, garnered him a lofty scholarly reputation, and made him well known to the Parsis. That research has taken Hinnells to many Parsi communities, yielding not only a majority of the articles in the volume under review but also his magisterial study of Zoroastrians in Britain (Oxford, 1996) and a forthcoming book on the Parsi diaspora.

On the historical side, are three groundbreaking articles on the impact of colonialism: "Anglo-Parsi Commercial Relations,” "Parsis and British Education,” and "Social Change and Religious Transformation Among Bombay Parsis.” The three pieces together provide remarkable insight into how, why and when the Parsis of India underwent fundamental changes that wrought the vibrant, successful and influential community of today. The economic and socioreligious foundation established through communal invigoration led to "The Flowering of Zoroastrian Benevolence” documented by Hinnells which has continued to the present, albeit with reduced vigor. Glimpses of Parsi religiosity at the inception of that period of flux is necessary for comprehending the magnitude of change, and it is provided by Hinnells in "British Accounts of Parsi Religion” — an area of investigation that could be augmented by studies on how Parsis of that time regarded their own beliefs and practices vis-à-vis those of Europeans. Parsi religiosity at present also captured Hinnells’ scholarly interest especially "Philosophy” which largely surveys trends within the community of Bombay and to a lesser extent elsewhere. Immigrant Parsi involvement in English politics is examined through the life of Muncherji Bhownagree.

On the statistical side, three chapters "The Modern Zoroastrian Diaspora,” "Parsi Experiences” and "A Comparative Study of Communities in Britain, Canada and the USA” probe themes of commonality and disparity between diaspora groups in different countries. Reams of survey and interview data served as the foundation for a full picture of the ways in which Parsi and Iranian Zoroastrians have adapted to new societies in recent years. Much planning, intensive travel and careful administration combined with established methodology from the social sciences laid the groundwork for extracting the information that gives us the clearest and most complete understanding to date of issues important to Zoroastrians. In many ways, Hinnells has built upon and expanded in multiple directions — geographically and topically — the works of Eckehard Kulke (The Parsees in India: A Minority as Agent of Social Change, Delhi, 1974, reprinted 1993), Paul Axelrod ("A Social and Demographic Comparison of Parsis, Saraswat Brahmins, and Jains in Bombay,” PhD diss., Department of Anthropology, University of North Carolina, 1974; and "Myth and Identity in the Indiana Zoroastrian Community,” Journal of Mithraic Studies, Vol. 3, pts. 1-2, 1980, pp 150-165) and Hillary Langstaff (Indian Parsis in the Twentieth Century, Karachi, 1987). Methodology, not only Hinnells’ but a survey, is addressed directly in the volume’s opening essay "Postmoder­nism and the Study of Zoroastrianism” whose chronological framework extends from the 1880s to present. This reviewer wishes that essay, fine as it is, had been enlarged or supplemented by a critical in-depth analysis of trends in the study of Zoroastrianism.

This collection of articles is a book that both scholars and practitioners of Zoroastrianism must read. It concisely captures and reflects where Zoroastrianism and Zoroastrians have come from and where they are headed communally and theologically.