“Double standards”

It is always interesting to read Kersee Kabraji’s comments in your balanced journal ("Double standards,” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, October 7, 2008). Whom do we believe: our pseudo researchers and interpreters, or our pristine scriptures?

The last paragraph of the Haptan Yasht says, categorically, that we welcome and laud those priests who spread our religion in foreign lands (conquered by Persia). As Kabraji says, our Gathas are replete with references to conversion, bringing a juddin from the wrong to the right path, and making him/her a true Zoroastrian.

Our treatises say that we honor all men and women who follow the path of Asha as the true disciples of Ahura Mazda and, therefore, are true Mazda­yasnians.

After the persecution of Zoroastrians in Iran, we became very myopic and embraced a phase of closed-door Zoroastrianism.

B. T. DASTUR