Recurring controversy

From time to time a controversy arises about whether the Indian Parsis are an offshoot of Zoroastrian Persian males and Indian females. There is also conjecture that the original émigrés left their women and children behind and landed on the coast of Diu unaccompanied by their female companions.

We have no documentary evidence to either support or dispute the contention.

One can only surmise that those devout émigrés could not have been so unconcerned about carrying their wives and children with them. I do not think that Zoroastrian ethics would have permitted them to abandon their families.

Anthropologists believe that Parsi males intermingled freely with the Maer tribe of shepherds in Gujarat, the reason being that the members of that tribe are unusually fair, tall and hook-nosed, like the original Persian settlers.

As to the number of boats that landed in Diu, it is impossible to "guesstimate.” It is logical to surmise that it was not just one convoy that landed there. Some others must have followed while some more must have been drowned in the tempestuous sea.

B. T. DASTUR