Thoughts, words, deeds

Parsis claim monopoly over the Zoroastrian religion. According to their mindset, no one in the world has a right to follow the teachings of Zarathushtra unless that person has been born to a Zoroastrian father and a Zoroastrian mother.

Nowhere in the world has any religion been confined to a single community. There are Christians, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains in all parts of the world. They have different nationalities and cultures, but they still have a common religion.

Parsis claim that they have been able to preserve the purity of the Zoroastrian faith because they have not allowed outsiders to pollute it. They also claim that ever since their ancestors migrated to India from Iran some 1,300 odd years back, they have preserved the purity of their Iranian blood by avoiding intermarriages.

During the past century or so, Parsis who have migrated from India to different corners of this earth find it difficult, nay impossible, to procure purely Zoroastrian life-mates for their third generation offspring. Since our forefathers migrated to India from Iran more than 1,300 years back, did they not, during the distant past, face similar problems in procurement of life partners for their third generation?

Today, we are more than 50 generations away from our migrant ancestors. Is it possible that during all these generations Zoroastrians could always find only Zoroastrian life-mates? Based on our present experience, can we unquestioningly believe that?

If we desire that Zarathushtra’s teachings should flourish for eternity, we will have to change our stubborn mindsets. Zarathushtra’s basic principles are good thoughts, good words and good deeds.

Among bad thoughts is the thought that the fire in a Zoroastrian fire temple becomes polluted if it is exposed to the gaze of persons of different faiths.

Among bad words are those that categorically order non-Zoroastrian friends of a deceased Zoroastrian to abstain from paying their respects to the dead after the funeral prayers have been completed.

Among bad deeds is the forcible prevention of persons of other faiths from entering a Zoroastrian fire temple.

FARAMARZ B. SETHNA

Gandhidham, Kutch