Readers' Forum
“Idol worship”
"Idol worship”
I have read the letter by Diana Patell ("Idol worship,” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, November 21, 2013) and Armin Dutia Motashaw’s response to it (Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, January 21, 2014). I am in total disagreement with Patell and in total agreement with Motashaw’s views regarding what we are teaching our children about our prayers.
It has become fashionable to denigrate our powerful prayers on some pretext or the other. Do the Christians read The Old Testament in Hebrew and The New Testament of the Bible in Latin — both of which are dead languages? Do the Muslims read the Quran in Arabic? They read their scriptures in the localized languages and scripts, retaining their essence.
For 50 years I have said that the Parsis should read the translations of our prayers rather than lean on others’ scriptures or run down our own. As Shakespeare says in Julius Caesar in a different context, "the fault doth lie with ourselves…”
I agree with Motashaw that our "closed shop” fire temples are a consequence of the Arab desecration (in Iran) and the nawabs of Bharuch and Surat, and by the tyrant Mohammad Begdo of southern Gujarat.
Hindus, Christians and Muslims have retained their identities by sticking to their scriptures in current languages. Parsis should do so too by reading Gujarati, English and Hindi translations of our prayers.
Motashaw rightly says that if our children are wayward regarding our prayers, it is due to the parents’ highly diluted faith in our powerful prayers.
You can be a good Zoroastrian by sticking to our scriptures without being a fanatic, snobbish or claiming to be racially pure (the only pure races are the original Andamanese — 11 left; and the Congo Pygmies — 250 left).
B. T. DASTUR
I have read the letter by Diana Patell ("Idol worship,” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, November 21, 2013) and Armin Dutia Motashaw’s response to it (Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, January 21, 2014). I am in total disagreement with Patell and in total agreement with Motashaw’s views regarding what we are teaching our children about our prayers.
It has become fashionable to denigrate our powerful prayers on some pretext or the other. Do the Christians read The Old Testament in Hebrew and The New Testament of the Bible in Latin — both of which are dead languages? Do the Muslims read the Quran in Arabic? They read their scriptures in the localized languages and scripts, retaining their essence.
For 50 years I have said that the Parsis should read the translations of our prayers rather than lean on others’ scriptures or run down our own. As Shakespeare says in Julius Caesar in a different context, "the fault doth lie with ourselves…”
I agree with Motashaw that our "closed shop” fire temples are a consequence of the Arab desecration (in Iran) and the nawabs of Bharuch and Surat, and by the tyrant Mohammad Begdo of southern Gujarat.
Hindus, Christians and Muslims have retained their identities by sticking to their scriptures in current languages. Parsis should do so too by reading Gujarati, English and Hindi translations of our prayers.
Motashaw rightly says that if our children are wayward regarding our prayers, it is due to the parents’ highly diluted faith in our powerful prayers.
You can be a good Zoroastrian by sticking to our scriptures without being a fanatic, snobbish or claiming to be racially pure (the only pure races are the original Andamanese — 11 left; and the Congo Pygmies — 250 left).
B. T. DASTUR
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