Editorial Viewpoint
His soul goes marching on
We are raised with the beliefs, traditions and prejudices of our family and community. Many of us go through life clinging to these convictions. To question these ideologies requires courage, curiosity and an ability to reason and analyze.
Till the age of 30 Dastur (Dr) Maneckji Nusserwanji Dhalla, the high priest of Karachi, was “strictly orthodox.” As he states in his autobiography The Saga of a Soul, “My faith in conventions remained unshaken. I took pride in adhering to popular opinion and treating the religion as sacred and too delicate to discuss. A simple, practical and convenient religion cannot be a true religion… Age-old traditions were true, sacred, infallible and unchanging, hence it would be improper to tamper with them.”
How then did this traditionalist priest end up being the voice of reason, pragmatism and reform a 100 years ago when orthodoxy was the norm?
We could venture that the answer lies in education. Yet many educated people are conservatives. Several of our priests and high priests hold doctorates. Those include Dasturs Kaikhusroo JamaspAsa, Firoze Kotwal, Peshotan Mirza (though not in religious studies), Rooyintan Peer and Ramyar Karanjia. But they are all orthodox in their outlook. And so are most of the students who graduate from our madressas.
Dhalla proceeded to Columbia University in 1905 to pursue a masters degree and a doctorate, and as he put it, “to place my eastern knowledge of Iranian languages on the altar of the scientific method of western scholarship...
“I did all I could to widen the horizons of my mind. I tried to garner as much knowledge as I could. I lived a pure life. Neither the fashions of the day nor the glamor of the West captivated me… Just as I had gained a great deal from my studies at the University, I attained much from my wide, personal reading, from listening to innumerable lectures and by keeping my ears and my eyes wide open, hearing all, seeing all and living a life of quest and questioning… It was the renaissance of my religious life.”
Buoyed by his new outlook Dhalla observed, “I was now eager to become the thinker of new thoughts, the student of new ideas and the propagator of new concepts. In 1905 I had set foot on American soil as an orthodox. Now in 1909 I was leaving the shores of the New World as a reformist.”
Here are a few of the ideas that Dhalla espoused from 1905 onwards:
*“When a woman reaches puberty, there is this natural flow of blood. Primitive man, in his ignorance looked upon this as a very serious and dangerous event. Blood was always used in sorcery. When it made its appearance in womenfolk, it was believed that during that period some impure and evil spirit had surrounded her. In such a condition she was kept apart in a little hut away from the home. It was supposed that her gaze, her touch or her voice would desecrate the atmosphere.
“As knowledge increased this custom ceased in advanced nations. It is non-existent now amongst the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Chinese, Japanese and almost all communities. Barring all uncultured, undeveloped tribes, in the advanced world this custom has remained only amongst the Parsis and a portion of the vast population of Hindus.
*“The vast amounts expended on ceremonies and sandalwood pose a serious question to the community from the economic and ethical standpoint. The false notion that by performing many ceremonies and by burning much sandalwood all worldly desires are fulfilled and heaven is attainable gives signs of the community’s degradation. Instead of relying upon our own strength and fashioning our own material and spiritual destiny by the toil and sweat of our brow, according to the precepts of our religion, we lean upon the supposed magical powers of ceremonies and the imaginary merits of burning sandalwood and crave in an unzoroastrian manner the privilege to purchase salvation without personal effort.
Till the age of 30 Dastur (Dr) Maneckji Nusserwanji Dhalla, the high priest of Karachi, was “strictly orthodox.” As he states in his autobiography The Saga of a Soul, “My faith in conventions remained unshaken. I took pride in adhering to popular opinion and treating the religion as sacred and too delicate to discuss. A simple, practical and convenient religion cannot be a true religion… Age-old traditions were true, sacred, infallible and unchanging, hence it would be improper to tamper with them.”
How then did this traditionalist priest end up being the voice of reason, pragmatism and reform a 100 years ago when orthodoxy was the norm?
We could venture that the answer lies in education. Yet many educated people are conservatives. Several of our priests and high priests hold doctorates. Those include Dasturs Kaikhusroo JamaspAsa, Firoze Kotwal, Peshotan Mirza (though not in religious studies), Rooyintan Peer and Ramyar Karanjia. But they are all orthodox in their outlook. And so are most of the students who graduate from our madressas.
Dhalla proceeded to Columbia University in 1905 to pursue a masters degree and a doctorate, and as he put it, “to place my eastern knowledge of Iranian languages on the altar of the scientific method of western scholarship...
“I did all I could to widen the horizons of my mind. I tried to garner as much knowledge as I could. I lived a pure life. Neither the fashions of the day nor the glamor of the West captivated me… Just as I had gained a great deal from my studies at the University, I attained much from my wide, personal reading, from listening to innumerable lectures and by keeping my ears and my eyes wide open, hearing all, seeing all and living a life of quest and questioning… It was the renaissance of my religious life.”
Buoyed by his new outlook Dhalla observed, “I was now eager to become the thinker of new thoughts, the student of new ideas and the propagator of new concepts. In 1905 I had set foot on American soil as an orthodox. Now in 1909 I was leaving the shores of the New World as a reformist.”
Here are a few of the ideas that Dhalla espoused from 1905 onwards:
*“When a woman reaches puberty, there is this natural flow of blood. Primitive man, in his ignorance looked upon this as a very serious and dangerous event. Blood was always used in sorcery. When it made its appearance in womenfolk, it was believed that during that period some impure and evil spirit had surrounded her. In such a condition she was kept apart in a little hut away from the home. It was supposed that her gaze, her touch or her voice would desecrate the atmosphere.
“As knowledge increased this custom ceased in advanced nations. It is non-existent now amongst the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Chinese, Japanese and almost all communities. Barring all uncultured, undeveloped tribes, in the advanced world this custom has remained only amongst the Parsis and a portion of the vast population of Hindus.
*“The vast amounts expended on ceremonies and sandalwood pose a serious question to the community from the economic and ethical standpoint. The false notion that by performing many ceremonies and by burning much sandalwood all worldly desires are fulfilled and heaven is attainable gives signs of the community’s degradation. Instead of relying upon our own strength and fashioning our own material and spiritual destiny by the toil and sweat of our brow, according to the precepts of our religion, we lean upon the supposed magical powers of ceremonies and the imaginary merits of burning sandalwood and crave in an unzoroastrian manner the privilege to purchase salvation without personal effort.
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