“The BPP’s role”

The wheels fell off my keshash (law of action and reaction) which refused to grind exceedingly fine and instead ground to a halt when I read "The BPP’s role” (Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, November 21, 2009). With this newly fashionable fraudulent item on the rise (and taking the rise!) we see a further decline in following Zarathushtra’s teachings. Your promoter of keshash (from which infernal regions has this humbugry surfaced?) has unceremoniously kicked out the daena (insight and revelation) from what he would doubtless perceive as the "pristine” teachings. Again, the deafening silence from our "one-legged” coterie of high priests who thereby give tacit acceptance to this impudent new fraud on our true Mazdayasna (see Cyrus Ruttonsha’s admirable expression in his letter "Hateful custom” in the same issue, courtesy Rabbi Hillel). The good Rabbi’s ethical exhortation has been anticipated at Behistun and Naqsh-i Rustam, and in our Zoroastrian Pahlavi Shayast ne-shayast 13.29.

Map of the Azargoshasb temple complex

Taking my cue from Ruttonsha’s letter with its horrifying contents, I would like to ask the "one-leggeds” what is it about Zarathushtra that makes his Mazda-inspired teachings so reprehensible, if not downright repugnant for them to dismiss in favor of nonsensical jantar-mantar teengal-tangal (mumbo jumbo) rituals (which have no bearing on anything whatsoever to do with Zoroastrian precepts, philosophy and practices), and bogus "traditions” (which by their own admission are universally inapplicable). Well, all you one-legged wonders, what and why?

Anent the estimable piece "Assembly at Azargoshasb” (Zoroastrians Abroad, Parsiana, November 21, 2009), in an update on the exact location of the sanctum sanctorum within the Azargoshasb complex, Prof Frantz Grenet tells me that he has reasons for believing it to be the Hasht-taq ("Eight Arches”), marked 2 on the map. The fire temple marked 1 was very probably an assembly/congregational hall. Grenet is both convincing and persuasive, and he will not be easily gainsaid.

FARROKH VAJIFDAR

London

f.vajifdar@btinternet.com