Pious Citizens: Reforming Zoroastrianism in India and Iran

6. The Parsi Rediscovery of Ancient Iran

142 6 The Parsi Rediscovery of Ancient Iran Centuries of contact with a weak and idle race have not exercised any perceptible influence upon the habits of industry for which the ancestors of the Parsees were remarkable. —Dosabhoy Framjee, Parsees: Their History, Manners, Customs, and Religion (1858) In the middle of the nineteenth century, Parsi reform-minded philanthropists took the first steps toward reestablishing ties with their coreligionists in Iran.1 What began as an effort to improve Iranian Zoroastrians’ living conditions quickly mushroomed into a full-blown operation to reorganize and reform the Iranian Zoroastrian community, as well as to revise their legal status vis- à-vis the Islamic state. Parsis arrived in Iran with the funds, international political connections, and organizational capacity to implement these changes. In their efforts to revitalize their Iranian brethren, Parsi reformers and philanthropists radically changed the Iranian Zoroastrian community, leaving behind the footprint of their own, Reformist, context. They initiated community organization and religious reform along Indian Parsi lines, although these were refracted through the different conditions and experiences in Iran. Iran also played a central part in the Parsi imagination. Parsi histories that emerged in the nineteenth century begin with the “myth” of ancient Iranian grandeur, followed by the story of Parsi exile from the fatherland. These new histories, written in the context of religious reform, illustrate profound connections between religion, race, and civilization as they revolve around the myth of exile and return. The Parsi Rediscovery of Ancient Iran | 143 Renewal of Contact Between Iran and India The nature of the contact between the Iranian and Indian Zoroastrian communities changed during the course of the eighteenth century. Deteriorating conditions in Iran led to increased Zoroastrian migration from Iran at the end of the century. These same conditions altered the relationship of the Parsi community to their fellow religionists. Ever since Parsi emigration to India, the Iranian Zoroastrian community, the “original” Zoroastrians, had been imbued with a certain religious authority. Over the centuries, emissaries had been sent to Iran in order to clarify religious questions or to seek authority or knowledge of texts. 14. Swedish map of Iran and India, Fullständig Schol-Atlas, Stockholm, 1867. 144 | Pious Citizens In 1722 an Iranian dastur arrived in India from Kerman with the response to a religious question from the Parsis—a rivayat. Dastur Jamasp Hakim Vilayati, a scholar of both Pahlavi and Avestan languages, enjoyed such authority among the Parsis that he was asked to resolve a dispute concerning dakhmeh ritual. He brought a previously unknown religious text to the Parsis, the Nirangestan, and remained in India for a year to train high priests.2 During his residence in India, Dastur Vilayati discovered that there was a one-month discrepancy between the Parsi and Iranian Zoroastrian religious calendars. Owing to the enormous importance of the calendar for calculating appropriate ritual observances, this finding ushered in an intense controversy in the community, dividing those individuals who would adhere to the existing Parsi practice (the Shahenshahis) from those Parsis who believed that the Iranian Zoroastrians were more likely to have maintained correct practice over the centuries (the Qadimis). Those in the Iranian camp, in addition to those priests trained by Dastur Vilayati, tended to be poorer artisans and lesser-known merchants. The Parsi dasturs held sway among those groups that were more closely tied in with their own authority and prestige, such as the larger merchant families in Surat. The Qadimis wrote to Iran asking for further confirmation, but received no response. Nearly a generation later, in 1768, the nephew of Dastur Darab (one of Velayati’s Parsi students and high priest of the Qadimis) was commissioned by the Qadimis to travel to Iran to pursue the issue. Dastur Mulla Kaus spent the next twelve years in Iran with his son, Mulla Feroze, studying astronomy and astrology with Zoroastrians in Yazd and Kerman. While in Yazd he consulted with a general assembly of Zoroastrians at the fire temple. The last of the rivayats was compiled from the seventy-eight questions he put to this assembly.3 Still seeking more information on the calendar issue, Mulla Kaus traveled to Isfahan, where he spent three years with Muslim scholars studying Arabic and Persian, as well as astrology, philosophy, logic, grammar, Islamic theology, and medicine.4 After successfully making an astrological prediction for the Iranian shah, Karim Khan Zand, he served at his court in Shiraz for...