Vanishing priests

Many animals, birds, reptiles and insects have become extinct. Some, unknown to man until a month back, have been discovered in the dense jungles of Indonesia and Brazil. It is a natural process, at times accelerated by man’s interference with nature, and his prodigious appetite for shikar (the kill). The vultures, until they vanished, were a part of our disposal of corpses, but nature has endowed us with an intellect to find an alternative method of disposal, doctrinally acceptable: solar panels, which have come to stay.

At the last meeting of the Federation of Parsi Zoroastrian Anjumans of India held on September 3 and 4, 2005, it was roughly calculated that 300-325 Zoroas-trian priests remained in India, which seemed to tally with the earlier comprehensive survey carried out by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences that one percent males take to priesthood.

The community and religion owe a debt to the priests of yore who brought our noble religion to India, encased in their minds. The religious lore was passed down, from father to son, for nearly eight centuries, before they started recording it, first in Sanskrit and then in Gujarati. Had they not done that where would we be today? No amount of indebtedness (to them) is adequate.

If these priests vanish, it will be the largest single tragedy to smite us. Who will perform our rites (from birth to death)? Who will maintain our dadgahs, adarians and atash behrams?

Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) trustee Burjor Antia mentioned at the said meeting that if there were no priests left no Parsis would be left, and (I may add) both the community and the religion would be consigned to the history books.

We Parsis have fought various calamities and overcome those. This calamity must be prevented from happening and, much less, overtaking us.

So what should we do? Just exhorting young boys to take to priesthood is not the solution. No "empty bag (read, a very poor pay) can stand erect.” I met two young mobeds and asked them whether they would follow in their father’s footsteps, and they both emphatically said, "No.” The reasons advanced were: the magajmaris (high-handedness) of the trustees, and very poor pay and perquisites.

The writing on the wall is bold, and we can ignore those to our own peril (extinction).

In former years, mainly in Gujarat and up to Dahanu, the farmer — zamindars/orchardists/pithawallas took ample care of our priests — at a time when the economy was still agrarian. Two things have happened since then with the promulgation of legislation on zamindari and prohibition. The farmer-zamindars and pithawallas could not survive.

The priests’ sons who were bright took to westernized education and found priesthood very unattractive. Dasturi/mobedi will have to compete with other avocations. A priest’s compensation will not match those of a high-flying surgeon/a town planner/a financial analyst/an international bureaucrat at the UNO, but their salaries must be comparable with those of the other avocations.

One of the strategies for communal bodies like the BPP/the World Zoroas­trian Organisation/the big and small punchayets and anjumans, could be to set aside two to five percent of their income as a Consolidated Fund for the Priests.

Today, most of our priests cannot translate for us what they pray. Cannot blame them. Like those in other avocations, the priests have to be competent in their own job, and have to be remunerated on par with many others.

The bottom line is to pay them well or perish. There is no half-way house.

It will be interesting to have the views of not just your readers, but of the organizations which claim to represent our interest. No priests. No Parsis. No religion. Enter history books.

BEHRAM T. DASTUR