“Traitors to their teachers”

What are your readers supposed to make of Faribourz Nariman’s baffling "Traitors to their teachers” (Parsiana, August 7, 2012)? Is it intended as a new direction for the New Shahenshahi Year? Or is it a return to the good old days of fatwas (diktats) and fatkas (physical blows)?

Respected savant that he is, Nariman has ranged far and wide, way exceeding the agreed parameters of scholarship. On his current grand tour he has taken on illuminati from Karl Geldner to Rene Guénon, from Dasturs Maneckji Dhalla to Khurshed Dabu. No, wait! I’ll rewrite the last two to reclassify them as rank traitors with clandestine followers evidently out to wreak havoc and destruction upon Nariman’s long-cherished chimeras of orthodoxy and tradition. Your readership, world-wide, would appreciate Nariman’s overdue (re)defining of these — for us ingrates.

To be sure, Dabu was gulled by Hindu pseudo-mysticism, fired up afresh via the hoaxer Madame Helena Blavatsky, and the hopelessly confused Henry Olcott and Dr Annie Besant — traitors all? But what are we to make of Nariman’s Dhalla execration which, through his breath-taking tilt at that good man, misses his own target in denouncing the Dhalla-Bode-Dabu trio. Dabu was strangely diverted by an insidious Theosophy which was even more strongly despised by James Moulton with his forthright: "The system was nursed in fraud and has matured in immorality,” followed by his perspicacious: "It is the Parsi departure from the Gathas that has given Theosophy its chance.”

On which note, permit us to jog Nariman’s memory that it was

? a high priest (of unZoroastrian cultic persuasion) who came across in Parsiana with: "It is the fondness for the Gathas that is leading the community astray!”

? a current high priest who makes no bones about his acutely theosophical leanings and who, at the 1993 WZO Gatha Colloquium, made a laughing-stock of himself when he attempted a challenge to Stanley Insler on his 1975 Gatha translation with an inane deriding of the latter: "...the Gathas of Zarathustra are truly a text bound with seven seals.” Insler’s calm response began with something like "Ah yes! but had you progressed beyond my first sentence...” to much guffawing and convulsed laughter. Nariman is clearly right for once!

Dastur Framroze Bode had invited much disapproval with his liberal practising of Gathic ordinances, his conversion activities being Nariman’s major bogey. Among his converts were several born of the illicit union of "orthodox” Parsi fathers with willing non-Parsi females. Their orthodoxy had obviously ceased with their extra-religious hanky-panky. A reminder for Nariman: among the "dashtur-s” officiating at the 1882 Mazgaon navjotes (before 1,000 witnesses) the names of five "dashtur-s” (the Parsi compositor had apparently lost his lower-case "s!”) stand out — unclandestinely! — Dashtur Jamashpji Minocheherji Jamashpashana; Dashtur Jamshedji Shorabji Kukadaru (make note!); Dashtur Hormaji Temulji Jamashpashana; Dashtur Firojji Jamashpji Jamashpashana; and Dashtur Kavashji Manekji Katrak. Kukadaru’s fulsome 1958 eulogy by Minoo Barjorji Desai was fully titled Ashoina anupam avatar Sant Dasturji Jamshedji Kukadaru (Outstanding manifestation of righteousness of Saint Dasturji Jam­shedji Kukadaru). All traitors, were they? Perhaps Nariman will next entertain us with further selected Aunt Sally’s (targeting a person with insults and criticism)?

Dhalla was sent by a sensibly orthodox Sindh Parsi community to the US to study with that giant among Iranophiles, A. V. Williams Jackson. Cursetji Pavri too had benefitted by this great American’s open-minded and large-hearted mentoring. The latter’s chief claim to fame today, alas! is that he was the brother of Winchester Marchioness Bapsy. Whilst their names are bandied about among Parsis, their literary output is only superficially investigated. Karachi Parsis of an older generation devoutly remember Dhalla, and have seen to it that his glorious memory remains undamaged. For Nariman, Dhalla is heavily tarnished by his advocacy of an electric crematorium, and his jubilant aside about a failed memorial meeting for him. What would that great man have made of the current dakhma dénouement which continues despite full public awareness of the deceptions practised by dhongidox priests and subverted laity to keep an unworkable system from saving their loss of face, and consequent "orthodox” opprobrium!

On "tradition,” its formation and its fading, Nariman is respectfully pointed towards Dr Jivanji Modi’s Introduction to his rarely consulted Religious Ceremonies and Customs of the Parsees. The K. R. Cama Oriental Institute has not escaped Nariman’s compulsive censuring either — Modi, that energetic anthropologist, was its honorary secretary (as indeed was the pragmatist Bode!). For Nariman, "traditions” appear to be perpetuations of past errors, regardless of their outcomes. It is increasingly clear that he has again indulged in Aunt Sallying, and yet again has missed: he sees their traitorous reforms as "progressive worsening.” We wholly abhor all such arrant nonsense.

FARROKH VAJIFDAR

London

f.vajifdar@btinternet.com