Part I: The settlement of the Parsis in India

Alan Williams (University of Manchester) in “The structure, significance, and poetic integrity of the Qesse-ye Sanjān”, discusses the form and structure of the late sixteenth-century Persian poem that contains an aetiological account of the earlier (eighth or tenth century?) Zoroastrian migration from Iran to Sanjan, Gujarat. The Qesse-ye Sanjān (QS) contains 433 verses (couplets) written by Bahman Kay Kobād in the bahr-e hazaj, or “shaking metre” (pp. 15–16). According to Williams “the QS has a somewhat marginal, hybrid status as a work of non-Muslim religious literature composed in India” and he suggests that “its genre and style owe as much to the Sasanian or even older epic and religious story as to sixteenth-century Indian or even twelfth-century Persian texts” (p. 17). He briefly discusses the older scholarly approaches to the QS and he argues that it “is, emphatically, not a text about the physical journey of the Parsis to India. To view it as such is to overlook more than half of the text: the physical journey to the subcontinent ends around verse 191 of 433” (p. 18). He suggests that the remaining portion narrates the acculturation process that the “émigré community” endured in order to become “Indian” (p. 18). Williams’ skillful structural reading leads him to suggest that “there is a potent blend of oral and written tradition in the QS as it combines a graphically realised structure of basic ideas of Zoroastrian tradition along with the distinctive literary style of the author Bahman Kay Kobād, to make the overall work a compelling religious poem which is an enduring memory of the past and plan for the future for the community” (p. 33).

Rukshana Nanji (Department of Archaeology, Deccan College [University], Pune, India) and Homi Dhalla (Founder-President of the World Zarathushti Cultural Foundation) in “The landing of the Zoroastrians at Sanjan: the archaeological evidence”, provide a brief survey of the archaeological findings of the first three seasons (2002, 2003, 2004) of excavations at the port of Sanjan. The authors state that “it was with the intention of evaluating the historical veracity of the Qesse-ye Sanjan that the World Zarathushti Cultural Foundation undertook archaeological excavations at the ancient site of the supposed landing” (p. 35). In Season 1, the excavators found “enormous quantities of Persian Gulf and Iranian ceramics, Chinese wares, glass, metal objects, beads, coins and other antiquities” (p. 37). The presence of “traded, expensive ceramics implied a thriving urban settlement with extensive contacts between the Far East on the one hand and the Middle East on the other” and helped to provide a tentative chronology for the site that covers the eighth to the thirteenth centuries (p. 38). In Season 2, a mortuary complex was discovered which contained six extended human skeletons (two male, three female, and one with DNA results still to be awaited) (p. 38). The first phase of Season 3 focused on the one known dokhma (Tower of Silence) of the nine known to have existed in Sanjan (p. 40) and its tenth-eleventh century date makes it the “earliest Zoroastrian structure on Indian soil” (p. 50). The authors also discuss the presence of pottery shards in the mud mortar which aid in dating the structure; the shallow depth of the central well (less than 1 metre and far less than present dokhmas) indicating the practice of regular removal and disposal; and the surprise presence of rings, bangles (in situ on the bones of forearms), beads, and a gold-foil earring that suggest that “the present practice of divesting the deceased of all ornament has been adopted at a later date” (p. 42). They contend that “there was an old established settlement either at Sanjan or in its immediate vicinity prior to the migration” (p. 51). Sanjan's large and cosmopolitan population leads them to suggest that “a trading outpost may well have existed prior to the migration” and, they therefore suggest that “the idea that a ship-load of migrants buffeted by the winds was tossed ashore at Sanjan by sheer chance needs to be recognized as a myth” (p. 53).

Sarah Stewart (London Middle East Institute, SOAS) in “Parsi prayer and devotional song in the Indian diaspora”, discusses the potency of prayer and the centrality of fire in ritual praxis and communal life. Stewart rightly points out that “though the oral composition and early transmission of the Zoroastrian scriptures have been subjects of discussion within Zoroastrian studies in recent years, there is little information about how such texts might have been understood by Zoroastrians themselves through the ages, and scant attention has been paid to this issue with respect to the living faith” (p. 59). She examines three versions of the Atash nu Git, a Parsi garba (a song accompanied by dance) composed by laypeople in 1765 that reflect the “transition from rural Gujarat to industrialised Bombay and the changes in society which accompanied that transition” (p. 60). She emphasises that the song is closely connected with female devotional life, a largely understudied phenomenon in Zoroastrian studies, and, as an oral composition, it “demonstrates how certain moments become fixed, whereas others are more fluid, and events in recent memory replace older ones” (pp. 73–74). She concludes with a critique of the purely text-based western scholars who have imposed external analytical and classificatory notions on such texts with little regard for the subject matter in question.

Part II: Parsis in nineteenth-century India

Jesse S. Palsetia (University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada) in “Partner in empire: Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy and the public culture of nineteenth-century Bombay”, discusses the life of the Parsi mercantile pioneer and his philanthropic works leading to his being the first Indian to receive a knighthood in 1842. Palsetia defines public culture as “the public or civic realm and ideological arena in which decision-making is shaped and attitudes formed in the urban setting of colonial India” (p. 82). He goes on to describe the shared mercantile activities that Jejeebhoy engaged in with the British which included supplying Indian cotton for export to Britain during the Napoleonic Wars (p. 84) and his association with British firms in the China—opium—trade (p. 85). Jejeebhoy's economic successes led to his prodigious charitable giving, which Palsetia contextualises as “a religious duty and a marker of social standing within Indian communities” (p. 86). As he notes, Jejeebhoy was the most prodigious Indian giver in the nineteenth century (p. 87). He then elucidates the process by which Jejeebhoy received his knighthood and his subsequent baronetcy in 1857 with the Jejeebhoy family pledging financial and property guarantees and their accepting the English law of primogeniture succession to the baronetcy contrary to Parsi tradition (pp. 93–94). Palsetia concludes by arguing that “Indian nationalism emerged as a by-product of British-Indian collaboration, and the non-violent and non-communal, if anti-imperialist, foundations of Indian composite nationalism could be said to bear the stamp of the political culture of Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy's time” (p. 97).

John R. Hinnells (Liverpool Hope University) in “Changing Perceptions of authority among Parsis in British India”, discusses the tensions between secular and priestly authorities in the Parsi community in the nineteenth century and the growing power of Bombay in communal life. Hinnells suggests that “perhaps the main aim of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) was to ensure that, in moving from the tight social structure of villages, migrants did not desert community ideals” and that it “was stricter in enforcing monogamy (and making provision for the divorced wife) and excluding Hindu practices, than was observed in the rural areas” (p. 101). He also mentions the rivalry between Dastur Jamaspasa and Dastur Sanjana resulting in Sanjana's brother being imprisoned for libel in 1869 and Sanjana condemning Jamaspasa for performing the naujotes (the initation ceremony) of nine children of non-Zoroastrian (juddin) mothers (p. 108). He then discusses the history of Parsis using external (i.e. Muslim, Hindu, or British) courts to settle religious questions such as calendar disputes, the construction of fire temples (in Surat and Bombay), and even which priests could perform what ceremonies (p. 109). In 1824 the Parsis in Poona sought and received permission from the BPP to build a dokhma and a Dar-i Mihr on the condition that they no longer initiate the children of juddin mothers (p. 111). This question of initiating the children of non-Zoroastrian mothers resulted in a resolution in 1830 stating that any priests who performed such ceremonies be barred for life from the priesthood (p. 112). Hinnells concludes by stating: “the contemporary community has no clear concept of authority; that was lost in the period 1830–1930. The problems began in the early days of settlement, when no clear line of authority was established after the migration from Iran, but became worse with the crumbling of authority in the nineteenth century” (p. 116).

Rusheed R. Wadia (Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India) in “Bombay Parsi merchants in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries”, focuses on the relationship between Parsi entrepreneurs and the Parsi “community” in Bombay in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Wadia seeks to “locate the history of the Parsis in the larger history of colonial rule in western India” (p. 122). He does so by highlighting the diverse mercantile relationships between the Parsis and Indian and European merchants, such as the partnership between Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy and Motichand Amichand to export raw cotton and his collaboration with Jardine Matheson & Co. in the opium trade (p. 125). Wadia raises a number of important questions that demand further study: “How did these networks affect capital accumulation? Did they reduce risks and transactional costs? Was there a reduction in competition between the different family concerns? Can one locate in the business world of nineteenth-century Bombay a loosely organised Parsi Company at work?” (p. 127). Perhaps his most intriguing suggestion is that trusts and charitable institutions may have been “a first step in knitting together men of property and resources” and that “it is reasonable to suggest that the promotion of charity and development of ‘cooperative’ institutions may have aided the development of commercial networks” (p. 130).

John Mcleod (University of Louisville, Kentucky, USA) in “Mourning, philanthropy, and M. M. Bhownaggree's road to parliament”, suggests the importance of Victorian mourning practices for understanding the political and philanthropic work of Sir Muncherjee Merwanjee Bhownaggree (1851–1933), the second Indian to be elected to British Parliament. Mcleod focuses on Bhownaggree's failed efforts to commemorate his deceased sister Ave (1869–1888) in Bombay, which resulted in his emigration to London and his charitable donations to St Luke's Parish Church in Redcliffe Gardens and the Imperial Institute in South Kensington, thus culminating in his election as the Tory MP for Bethnal Green from 1895–1905. McLeod's carefully constructed narrative emphasises the importance of Bhownaggree's personal grief in its Victorian context as one of the most underappreciated variables in understanding his estrangement from India and his subsequent career in British politics. McLeod's work suggests new directions for reexamining the charitable endowments of other prominent Parsis of the Victorian era and, in concert with Wadia's economic analysis, it provides us with new avenues for exploring Parsi public life and charitable giving in the nineteenth century.

Part III: Parsis in twentieth-century India and in their diasporas

Mitra Sharafi (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA) in “Judging conversion to Zoroastrianism: behind the scenes of the Parsi Panchayat case (1908)”, provides us with a nuanced picture of the early twentieth-century Parsi conversion case involving Suzanne Brière, a French woman who married into the Tata family. Sharafi discusses the unique circumstances of the case that saw two judges—Dinshaw Davar (1856–1916), the first Parsi judge of the Bombay High Court, and Frank Beaman (1858–1928), a blind British judge—rule against Mrs (Sooni) Tata in Petit v Jijibhai. The legal issue at stake was not whether conversion was permissible but rather, the justices ruled that juddins were excluded from enjoying the benefits of Parsi trusts, the legal instruments governing Zoroastrian properties and funds (p. 159). A century later, this case continues to generate fierce debate over whether the justices’ comments on conversion were obiter dicta (of no precedential value) (p. 159). Sharafi provides the most detailed account of the judicial dynamics in this monumental case and she notes that “it was Davar's judgment that established that the term Parsi referred to an ethnic category and Zoroastrian to a religious one” and that according to Beaman, “the Parsi community had metamorphosed into a caste” (p. 163). During the nine weeks of hearings the justices urged the parties to come to an out-of-court settlement so that they “might declare that the Zoroastrian religion permits conversions, but that the community (in a manner to be settled, if necessary, after further discussion) should regulate conversion by framing rules to safeguard it against abuse” (7 March 1908) (p. 165). Their final judgment, however, prohibited Mrs Tata (and the other plaintiff in the case, a Rajput woman) from entering fire temples, benefiting from Parsi trusts, and having their bodies be placed in the Towers of Silence regardless of whether they were able to convert to Zoroastrianism (pp. 163–164). Sharafi then attempts to reconstruct the various factors that contributed to this abrupt change and she highlights three contradictions in the testimony of the chief witness for the defence, Jivanjee Jamshedjee Modi, the secretary of the Parsi Panchayat and one of the most well-respected scholars of Zoroastrianism. Modi had previously authored the Panchayat's report by a sub-committee of experts that concluded that Zoroastrianism permitted conversion. He had acknowledged the case of three Hindu pandits who had converted to Zoroastrianism 1200 years earlier and whose names appear in the Dhup Nirang prayer. Beaman also noted that in 1903 Modi had written “an elaborate treatise, or, one might say, almost a book, to prove that the priests of Navsari were fairly entitled to the credit of having converted the Emperor Akbar”Footnote ¹ (pp. 167–168). Beaman wanted to exclude portions of Modi's testimony but, ultimately, he deferred to the more forceful Davar, leading to him being lampooned in a popular Parsi Gujarati song: “Justice Davar betha chukado karva ne sathe betha Beaman ha ji ha dhunva” (“Justice Davar sat to do justice and beside him sat Beaman to chant, ‘Yes Sir!’”) (p. 171). Sharafi skillfully argues that a number of factors ultimately informed Beaman's decision: judicial culture and etiquette (Davar had seniority by two months); the opportunity for plaintiffs to only appeal a unanimous ruling of the Davar-Beaman “special bench” in order to leapfrog over the Bombay High Court and appeal directly to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of London (an appeal that was never made); his chagrin regarding his absence from India “on urgent private affairs” two months after the hearings concluded and a month prior to the judgment being rendered; his desire to uphold the broader mandate of the colonial legal system by supporting the rule-of-law rhetoric as a bulwark against the arbitrary nature of oriental justice; his personal views declaring the “wonderful system of caste” that was “admirably adapted to social needs”; and, finally, his acute awareness of his outsider status in the Parsi community (pp. 172–176). Sharafi concludes that, “within the Parsi community, the legal profession, and in a larger colonial context, the influence of personalities and politics underscore the contingent nature of Petit's final outcome” (p. 176).

Jamsheed Choksy (Indiana University, Bloomington, USA) in “Iranians and Indians on the shores of Serendib (Sri Lanka)”, provides a brief but panoramic history of Zoroastrians and Parsis in Sri Lanka from the Achaemenids to the present. Choksy's article is particularly important since it provides us with data for a diaspora community that was not represented in John R. Hinnells’ The Zoroastrian Diaspora: Religion and Migration (Oxford, 2005). Choksy begins with the Sanskrit text known as the Sihigiri-vitara or “Story of Sigiriya” that speaks of a Maga Brahmana (Magian) who had accompanied Iranian mercenaries to the Sinhalese city of Anuradhapura and visited king Dhatusena (r. 455–73) (p. 181). Based on the numismatic and sigillographic evidence, he suggests that “Zoroastrian presence on the Indian subcontinent and communal designation as Parsis (< Sanskrit: Parasika, Parsika) predate the landing of Persians at Sanjan” (p. 185). In turning to the early modern and modern periods, Choksy acknowledges the personal nature of the major source on the Zoroastrian community, that being records compiled by Kaikhusru D. Choksy (1863–1938), the paternal great-grandfather of the author and “the community's unofficial historian” (pp. 186, 190, and 208, n. 8). He then surveys the economic activities of the early Parsis which included money-lending before commercial banks were common (p. 187), the transportation of durable and nondurable goods across the island (p. 188), and their involvement in the coffee and tea trades (p. 189). Choksy draws our attention to the fact that there were just 95 Zoroastrians in Ceylon in 1901, with that number almost doubling to 181 in 1911 (pp. 190–191). Ceylon's independence from Great Britain in 1947 led to nearly fifty per cent of the community returning to India (p. 193) with the population declining to just 61 Parsis by 2006 (p. 204).

Gillian May Towler Mehta (Liverpool Hope University) in “Zoroastrians in Europe 1976 to 2003: continuity and change”, provides a summary of the findings of her survey of Zoroastrians in Europe conducted in September 2003 (Appendix on pp. 227–235). The survey built on and expanded the scope of previous surveys conducted in 1976 and 1985 (by Hinnells), with a particular emphasis on questions regarding purity laws and their observance. Mehta states that 298 women and 293 men responded, representing about fifteen percent of the recorded population of the UK (in the 2001 census, 3,794 people identified their religion as Zoroastrian) (p. 213). Mehta notes that “more women than men affirmed that women should avoid the prayer room, the priest, Jashans and ceremonies for the dead during menstruation and that they should observe the childbirth rituals” (p. 216). Among women respondents Mehta found questions of menstrual purity to be particularly illuminating, “the women who affirm all the purity laws follow a general pattern of being older, coming to Europe as adults, and coming from Pakistan, Africa, and India. As a group, they are not as highly educated nor do they have as high-status occupations as the women who reject the purity laws” (p. 226). In her conclusion, she states that “some members of the community regard women who have married non-Zoroastrians as no longer Zoroastrian and try to exclude them from the Zoroastrian religion; in spite of this, some of these inter-married women continue to support the purity laws” (p. 227). Based on her findings, Mehta argues that “coming to Europe as an adult seems to be a dominant factor in determining support for the purity laws” (p. 227).

Michael Stausberg (University of Bergen, Norway) in “Para-Zoroastrianisms: memetic transmission and appropriations”, addresses texts and religious movements “not written or composed by people born into any ethnic Zoroastrian community” but which “raise the claim of ‘Zoroastrianness’”. He unequivocally states: “unlike Zoroastrian institutions in charge of religious boundary-maintenance the History of Religions is in no position to simply deny such claims” (p. 236). He then provides seven brief sketches in chronological order of memetic transmission. Sketch 1 briefly surveys western Zoroastrian pseudepigrapha from the Achaemenids to Friedrich Nietzsche's Also Sprach Zarathustra to a controversy in Melbourne, Australia in the spring of 2006 involving a four-metre high bronze male nude statue bearing the title “Zarathustra” (subsequently changed to “Thus Spake Zarathustra”) (pp. 238–241). Sketch 2 discusses Mazdaznan, a movement started by Ottoman Hanish (d. 1936) in Chicago and California, USA in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries which was largely concerned with issues of bodily hygiene (pp. 242–244). Sketch 3 discusses Dastur Sraosha Kaul (b. 1885 in Berlin) and his claim to have converted 30 people to his form of Zoroastrianism in San Diego, USA prior to the outbreak of World War II (pp. 244–245). Sketch 4 discusses the Mazdayasni Zarathushti Anjuman/International Mazdayasnan Order which began in the early 1960s in the state of Washington, USA with the support of two Zoroastrian priests: Dastur Bode from India and Rashid Shahmardan from Iran. The group argued for the right of ethnic Iranians to “return” to Zoroastrianism (pp. 245–246). Sketch 5 discusses the Zarathushtrian Assembly, a movement incorporated in California in 1990 which is largely inspired by Ali Akbar Jafarey who, in turn, claims Dastur Maneckji N. Dhalla (1875–1956), the High Priest of Karachi, as his teacher. Jafarey's view that the Gathas are the only source of canonical authority have proven to be as popular as he is controversial amongst orthodox Zoroastrian circles (pp. 246–248). Sketch 6 focuses on Alexander Bard (b. 1961), a member of the controversial, cross-dressing Swedish pop band Army of Lovers which had over twenty Top Ten hits on the Eurocharts in the early 1990s. Bard “converted” to Zoroastrianism in 1983 in Amsterdam and was formally initiated by a Swedish-Iranian Zoroastrian priest in Gothenburg in 1997 (pp. 248–249). Stausberg describes Bard's brand of Zoroastrianism as a scientistic, de-ethnicised vision that views Zarathustra as an existentialist philosopher who anticipated the Big Bang and quantum mechanics and emphasised the freedom of choice (pp. 248–249). His claim that “Bard does not publicly advertise Zoroastrianism and (unlike many Christian artists) refrains from making references to his religion in his music” needs modification in light of the song “Also Sprach Alexander” from the 1993 album, The Gods of Earth and Heaven: “Beneath the tower of death – A flock of vultures gather – For the holy feast – The last vision of my life – A stormy cloud of feathers – What fire wouldn't touch – Are the remnants of my body – To vultures under a steaming sun – A funeral in perfect weather – A curried soul survives the feast – The ox has been my teacher – Moustachoid a sexual beast – The Heredict Friedrich Nietzsche – May God leave someone else to be – The final zoroastrian”. Sketch 7 focuses on Pavel Pavlovič Globa (b. 1953), a Russian astrologer and television personality who claims Persian ancestry and has founded a number of Avestan Schools of Astrology in several Russian cities. According to Globa, he received his initiation into the esoteric wisdom of “Zervanite mobeds” by his grandfather somewhere in the east (p. 249). Globa's form of Zoroastrianism finds its inspiration in the Pahlavi books, and blends together Slavic and Iranian religious ideas and pre-histories (p. 250). Stausberg's brief but valuable survey lays the groundwork for a book-length project on new forms of globalised Zoroastrianisms in the twenty first century.

John R. Hinnells (Liverpool Hope University) in “Parsis in India and the diaspora in the twentieth century and beyond”, provides a panoramic overview of Parsis and their involvement in politics and public professions (pp. 256–259); of Parsi industrialists (pp. 259–260); of Parsis in the arenas of sports, arts, and the sciences (pp. 260–262); religious change (pp. 262–265); the Parsi diasporas to Britain, North America, and Australia (pp. 266–271); a brief discussion of a Zoroastrian world body and the issue of changing demography (pp. 271–273). As he suggests, “the aim of this bird's eye view of modern history and achievement is to place the Parsis in their rightful place in recent Indian history and diasporic studies” (p. 256). In his section on religious change, he discusses the career of Dastur M. N. Dhalla who was the first Parsi to receive a Ph.D. in Avestan and Pahlavi languages in the West. Dhalla studied at Columbia University in New York with the distinguished Iranist Abraham Valentine Williams Jackson. Hinnells quotes Dhalla: “in 1905 I had set foot on American soil as an orthodox. Now in 1909 I was leaving the shores of the new [sic] World as a reformist” (p. 263). As Hinnells presciently suggests, “he wrote a series of books which remain popular today, not least among North American Zoroastrians who are facing the sort of religious issues he faced a hundred years earlier” (p. 263). Hinnells also briefly surveys the current controversies involving the interrelated issues of the disposal of the dead in Towers of Silence and the prohibition against accepting the corpses of intermarried Parsi women in India who under the Special Marriage Act (SMA) did not renounce or change their religion (p. 265). Hinnells also raises the question of the purported millions of Central Asian Zoroastrians that might skew the balance of political and cultural power among the various Zoroastrian groups that currently appear to be 120,000 in number in a global context (p. 273).

The essays in this volume represent truly significant advances for the study of “Zoroastrians”, “Parsis”, and “Para-Zoroastrians” in India and the global diasporas. John Hinnells and Alan Williams must be congratulated for their skillful editorial work in providing us with an extremely rich collection that will be of great use for teaching and research. It is hoped that the interdisciplinary nature and broad scope of this collection will serve as a model for future conference volumes that will build on the magnificent essays found here.