“The shame at Sanjan”

To all you Parsis (I use the word Parsis because some are Zarathushtis in name only), open your eyes! Our community in India is dying. By 2050 we will be a "tribe” in the Census of India as our numbers will dip below 15,000. And yet we protest and go to the police when a sincere Russian wants to follow our religion and bring more members into the fold.

While followers of Islam have multiplied like rabbits we are shooting ourselves in the foot! Have Parsis forgotten their history? We left Iran because of religious persecution. We could not tolerate it there as our numbers had become so few (less than 4,000 at one time). Well, history is about to repeat itself. We need as many followers who want to embrace the good religion as possible. Are you all blind to what is happening in the world today? Islam is aiming to take over everywhere. While we squabble among ourselves we are being taken over by the back door.

Meher Master-Moos is eccentric but she is promoting the Zarathushti religion. And at this stage I would put my entire support behind her, just because she is increasing the followers of my religion. A religion without followers is dead! We Parsis are committing hara-kiri in India by not reproducing enough to keep our numbers constant. When someone wants to and tries to sincerely embrace our good religion why create a hindrance? I cannot follow the logic behind it.

Do not worry, the Bombay Parsi Punchayet funds and flats in Bombay with almost free rents will be reserved for the Parsis of India (until of course there are none left to occupy them). Then, like the houses in Navsari there will be locks on the doors until they become uninhabitable or are encroached upon or just crumble to dust). Look all around you, at any Parsi function in Bombay and you will see that most of the people are over 60 years of age, i.e. dead in the next 40 years!

Let anyone in this world, Russian, Hindu or otherwise who wants to embrace our religion sincerely, repeat sincerely, be welcomed. Do not forget that countries like Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Armenia were once all followers of the Zoroastrian religion and part of the Persian empire. Is it any surprise if the fire of the old original religion of these peoples still burns in their hearts? The Parsis of India are not the sole keepers of the Zarathushti religion. They are merely a small fraction of its followers in the world. ARDESHIR B. DAMANIA

Davis, California, USA

abdamania@yahoo.com

I have read about what happened in Sanjan recently and it made for very sad reading. The way Bombay Parsi Punchayet chairman Dinshaw Mehta and his 45 supporters gate-crashed into private property and caused damage to it does not in the least make our supposedly cultured community proud. It is a criminal offence and needs to be redressed.

The incident also throws up a number of questions which I trust some of our community members will respond to. If Meher Master-Moos, or for that matter anyone else, runs private religious classes for foreigners or others, how does it affect members of the community? Is the Zoroastrian religion anyone’s private property? How and why should anyone try and stop the spreading of this wonderful religion? Zoroastrianism is a universal religion and all our scriptures indicate that acceptance into it is allowed.

Over the last two years, articles with quotes from Zarathushtra’s Gathas as well as from Avesta and Pahlavi scriptures have been published in the Parsi Press. These have failed to evoke any response from priests and scholars. All we hear is a general tirade that conversion is not allowed in our religion. One of these quotes read: "The Fravardin Yasht commemorates the Fravashi of Saena, an illustrious convert to Zoroastrianism. We learn from the Pahlavi works that this apostle of faith left behind him 100 disciples who preached Mazdayasnian faith in the land of Siestan. Armenia came under the Zoroastrian influence at a very early date and a corrupt form of Zoroastrianism prevailed in the country for several centuries. Cappadocia, Lydia and Lycia were the scene of active Zoroastrian propaganda… The proselytizing work on the part of Zoroastrian ministers of the faith was carried on with a considerable amount of success.” (For the full article, contact me by e-mail or on 09371006685.)

Why should anyone prove his parentage in order to be ordained a priest? Why should Master-Moos take permission from Mehta or anyone else? Only the government can interfere when any action is against the public interest, i.e. if it is anti-social or violating the law.

KERSEE KABRAJI

Poona

kerseekabraji@gmail.com

I refer to the shocking behavior of Parsis at Sanjan. After years of holding our heads high, calling ourselves a refined society, acting as if we are way above the rest, we must now bow our heads in shame. Times change and people need to change with the times. Are we expected to accept such behavior, which in plain and simple terms amounts to goondaism? This incident reminded me about another one years ago when I went to hear a lecture given by Dastur Faramroze Bode. When he tried to explain that some of our prayers were just tales of old, he was pelted with tomatoes and eggs. This act of hooliganism was by only a handful of misguided youth as later there was normal discussion and argument among the rest of the audience.

It is not merely a matter of agreeing or not with the beliefs and teachings at the Zoroastrian College. As it is we already have factions. Is there no way that present-day Parsis can sit across the table and work things out? Are we to accept the fact that the majority of Parsis now in Bombay are no longer worthy of the respect our forefathers worked so hard to establish? MEHROO S. KHAREGAT

merherbai36@hotmail.com

I have always taken a stand and helped suppressed individuals of the Parsi community in matters of cremation and interfaith ceremonies without any discrimination regarding gender or economic status, for which I have had to undergo many difficulties. I had to quit service with the Bombay Parsi Punchayet, I was banned from praying at atash behrams, agiaries and at Doongerwadi. I have been called names like "renegade” and have faced all this with a smile without entering into arguments with individuals or institutions, whether orthodox or reformist, because my aim as a mobed is to render services to my people in their time of need.

A big question looming over the community is conversion, which I have been totally against all my life. There are some individuals and groups who are keen on making conversions feasible and have approached me to conduct navjotes of total non-Zoroastrians which I have time and again turned down despite many religious shadats (past history of Zoroastrians) cited to me by these persons.

I strongly condemn the ordaining of a Russian, Mikhail Chistyakov, aged 48, as a mobed by undergoing the navar ceremony conducted at Meher Master-Moos’ Zoroastrian College in Sanjan by Ervads Khushroo Madon of Bombay and Dhunjishah Karanjia of Surat, who are both completely confused about Zoroastrian tenets.

There are very strong reasons for condemning such acts. In any religion, and specifically in Zoroastrianism, conversion is the biggest sin towards its prophet. Wherever conversions have been carried out, whether in the past or at present in any religion, it has given rise to feelings of hatred, destruction of life and properties and most important, created controversies dividing its followers.

The ordaining of an osta into an ervad can be performed only in a consecrated agiary or an atash behram fully equipped with allat, varsni vitti, idhors, etc (materials required for the navar ceremony which are available only in fire temples) and not in any school or college. Even the madressas do not conduct navar ceremonies. Only male children born of a mobed and his wife are eligible for this ceremony which is to be performed before they attain puberty. This is so because before the navar ceremony the boy has to go through two nahans of 10 days each, one for purification of self and the bareshnum nahan during which period if he experiences nightfall he has to withdraw from further procedure and is barred from becoming a mobed for life.

I request my fellow mobeds not to become involved in conversion activities no matter how much they are tempted by individuals or groups citing wrong religious shadats, financial or materialistic favors. Before conducting any navjote they should make sure of the Zoroastrian origin of the person or at least of one of the parents of the initiate. An individual’s faith is decided by God and His decision should not be challenged. ERVAD FRAMROZE S. MIRZA

fsmirza@rediffmail.com