Kadmi New Year

Did you know what the Parsis of the 18th century vehemently quarrelled over? The calendar! However silly it may sound, the fact remains that this controversy resulted in a division among the Parsis. The two sects formed were Kadmi and Shahenshahi.

The Kadmi sect officially came into existence in 1783 when Dadybhoy Nusserwanji, better known as Mota Dadysett (1734-1799), built and consecrated the Dadysett Atash Behram. Later, in 1804, his son Ardeshir Dady built a fire temple also as per Kadmi rituals on Hornby Road in Bombay.

During that period it was observed that the Zoroastrians of India and those of Iran were following calendars a month apart. The Shahenshahi sect comprising the majority of the Parsis in India believed that it was essential to add 30 days every 120 years to the calendar. This was obviously done once, even though on coming to India the practice had surprisingly been dropped. The Kadmi sect believed that it was absolutely forbidden to ever add a month to the Zoroastrian calendar. They were considered reformists and the Shahenshahis went to the extent of stopping them from using the agiaries. This came to be known as the Kabisa controversy.

Initially when these strong beliefs caused intense quarrels among prominent Parsis of Surat, Mota Dadysett and Dhunjisha Manjishaw paid the expenses of an athornan from Bharuch, Mulla Kaus Rustam Jalal and his then eight-year-old son Mulla Feroze, to go to Iran. They stayed there for 12 years, collecting all the necessary information regarding Zoroastrian religious practices. Later Mulla Kaus wrote a book on the Kabisa controversy.

The final outcome was and remains so to this day that the Kadmis (mainly Iranis who came to India later) celebrate their New Year 30 days earlier than the Shahenshahis. In other words, the Kadmi calendar moves a month ahead of the Shahenshahi calendar. Although the mah is different, the roz for both sects is the same on any given day except for 40 days of the year: five days of Gathas (prayers for the dead) at the end of the Kadmi year plus 30 days of the last month of the Shahenshahi calendar followed by five days of their Gathas.

This information was gleaned from the book History of the Dadysett Family by Rustam Barjorji Paymaster written at the request of Nusserwanji Dady Dadysett.

ZARDAST D. BHARUCHA