“Soundless prayer”

Just when we were settling back comfortably, secure in the knowledge that the languages and meaning of our genuine prayers were becoming increasingly understood among Parsis everywhere, along comes Cyrus S. Meherji’s letter "Soundless prayer” (Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, May 21, 2009) to yet again knock our Mazdayasni faith for a six.

To be sure, it stems from a meaning-is-no-matter school of disinformation which falls back on the old canard of vibration theology. Meherji’s approach is along the obscure lines of Cymatics, whatever that abstruse science might signify. There’s always a first among Parsis!

This farrago of "soundless prayer” where "each letter sets up a certain vibration” is absurd from its very proposition. Letters, unvoiced or otherwise, do not produce the requisite vibrations, whereas phonemes and syllables do.

Before Meherji’s Flame finally flickers out, let me yet again indicate that there are no prayers in Pahlavi. We have Zoroastrian prayers only in Gathic Avestan, Standard/Younger Avestan and Pazand. To explain further the absence of all Pahlavi, may I remind readers that Pahlavi contains at least 50 percent of Aramaic masks. Aramaic is a Semitic language, and it is because our late 19th and early 20th century scholars in India were unacquainted with the fact, that they took to pronouncing Pahlavi semi-Aramaically (pardon the pun!). Thus we intended ba nam-e yazdan but wrote pavan shem i yazdan, and so on...

Can one seriously believe that these vibrations would have reached our 33 Aryan godlings and godlets through the venue of semi-Semitics? Hardly!

The word baj (from waz, ewaz "voice, utterance, speech,” etc) does not mean "in silence, soundless” but "sotto voce” — in an undertone. Silence does not produce vibrations unless one lives in a strange kind of vacuum. It was exactly where the Pazand was inserted in our Avestan prayers that we intoned the former under our breath — but not in silence, except by those ignorant of it!

Why is everything imputed to Adar-badh Mahraspandan? Isn’t it bad enough that we teach our children the nonsense about his tolerance to and emergence from the molten brass ordeal? For serious-minded protesters, let it be known that this remarkable priest (who flourished in the mid-fourth century under Shahpuhr II) emerged victorious through "seemly discourse” — pad gowishn-i passakht in the course of an interfaith debate convened by his appreciative, if headstrong, monarch. That learned great man was utilizing passages from the Gathas!

Our prayers, except for the Pazand which were composed mainly in India, were the outcome of the 21-nask arrangement under the supervision of the dasturan dastur (actually mobadhan mobadh) Weh-Shahpuhr in the reign of Khosro I Anushirwan (sixth century).

To return to the vibrationist school, "vibrations are different,” says Meherji. Can he explain if letters, phonemes, etc convey exact vibrations, why our mispronounced, ill-understood basic prayers do not and obviously cannot? How often, for instance, have we heard van-gheush twice, and asha tachit in the course of our Yatha Ahu Vairyo prayer recitation, even by today’s priests? Please let us have less of this tomfoolery and more commitment to our true Mazda-yasnian religion, based on good thought, speech and deed — they lead to proper understanding, correct prayer recitation, and the good work of Zoroastrian right-living.

Wishing Meherji proper power to his elbow for a revised edition of Flickering Flame.

FARROKH VAJIFDAR

London, UK

f.vajifdar@btinternet.com