Living Zoroastrianism
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LIVING ZOROASTRIANISM URBAN PARSIS SPEAK ABOUT THEIR RELIGION LIVING ZOROASTRIANISM URBAN PARSIS SPEAK ABOUT THEIR RELIGION Philip G. Kreyenbroek in collaborationwith ShehnazNeville Munshi I~ ~~~:~~n~~;up LONDON AND NEW YORK First Publishedin 2001 by Routledge 2 ParkSquare, Milton Park, Abingdon,Oxon, OX14 4RN http://www.routledge.com Transferredto Digital Printing 2006 © 2001 Philip G. Kreyenbroek Typesetin Palatinoby LaserScriptLtd, Mitcham, Surrey All rights reserved.No part of this book may be reprintedor reproducedor utilised in any form or by any electronic,mechanical, or othermeans, now known or hereafterinvented, including photocopyingand recording,or in any information storageor retrieval system,without permissionin writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A cataloguerecord of this book is availablefrom the British Library Library of CongressCataloguing in Publication Data A cataloguerecord for this book hasbeen requested ISBN 0-7007-1328-X Publisher'sNote The publisherhas gone to greatlengths to ensurethe quality of this reprint but pointsout that someimperfections in the original may be apparent Contents Preface vii The Informants xv Abbreviations xvi PART 1: THE BACKGROUND 1 CLASSICAL ZOROASTRIANISM 3 2 COMMON PARSI OBSERVANCES 16 basedon an accountby ShehnazN. Munshi 3 THE PARSIS IN INDIA 44 PART 2: THE INTERVIEWS 4 TRADITIONALISTS 61 Mrs 0 61 Mr Burjor H. Antia 75 Mr Homi P. Ranina 84 Mrs A 90 DrF 97 MrS 103 MrsN 107 MrK H2 MrT 115 5 NEO-TRADITIONALISTS 126 Mr Khojeste Mistree 126 Dr JeannieBharucha 145 Ms KhursheedKhurody 153 Mr Noshir Dadrawala 165 6 MODERNIST VIEWS 172 Mrs H 172 DrY 178 Mr Dinshaw K. Tamboly 184 Mrs E 190 Mrs V 196 v Contents 7 ECLECTICISM IN RELIGIOUS VIEWS 205 Mrs X 205 Mrs U 212 Mrs L 218 MrsQ 223 8 ESOTERIC BELIEFS 231 Dr Meher Master-Moos 231 Mr Adi F. Doctor 239 Mr BehramD. Pithavala 246 Mrs Nergish Nusservanjee 253 Ervad Yazdi N. Aibara 258 9 RELIGION AS CULTURAL HERITAGE 276 MrB 276 MrN 281 MrsM 286 PART 3: CONCLUSIONS 10 PARSI RELIGION IN THE LIGHT OF THE INTERVIEWS 293 APPENDICES 1 Divisions of Time in Zoroastrianism:Months, Days, Watches 319 2 Word List 321 Bibliography 329 Index 331 vi Preface The Parsisare a small groupof Iraniandescent who havepreserved their communal, cultural and religious identity in India for the last ten centuriesat least. This book is primarily concernedwith the religion of this community,a branchof the ancientfaith known as Zoroastrianism.It aims to elucidatethe contemporaryrealities of Parsi religious life on the basisof narrativeinterviews, a methodthat is increasinglyused in other fields of researchand whosevalue for the studyof religion is gradually being discovered.Like all other methods, qualitative researchhas its inherent limitations. It seems particularly appropriate in this case, however,because it helps to fill someof the more glaring lacunasin our knowledgeof modemParsi religion by throwing light on its subjective and devotionalsides. Few adequatedescriptions seem to exist of the way in which Parsisunderstand and practisetheir religion, and although a considerableamount is known about the classicalZoroastrian tradition as it developedin the Iranianhomeland until the 9th or 10th centuryeE, it cannotbe taken for grantedthat the connectionbetween this ancient tradition and modemIndian realities is simple and straightforward. An important reasonfor the scarcity of our information on modem Indian Zoroastrianismis that the interestof mostWestern academics and some modem Parsis has so far been focused predominantly on the ancient scriptural tradition. This classical tradition, in which doctrine and religious teachingplaya major role, is in fact often held to represent the norm for all forms of the religion. That implies that contemporary beliefs, attitudesand practicesfor which no obvious foundation can be found in the scriptural tradition tend to be dismissedas mistaken or corrupt. A strongpreoccupation with classicaltheology, in other words, has led to an academicunderstanding of Zoroastrianismwhich tendsto be usedas a prescriptivedefinition of that religion -a stateof affairs that has not encouragedthe study of the religious lives of modemParsis as valid expressionsof Zoroastrianism. It is of coursetrue that in somereligions the contemporarytradition is stronglyinfluenced by an 'official' form of the faith, which is basedon an authoritativeinterpretation of a canonof sacredtexts and is often upheld by a learned priesthood.In such cases,change generally results from interaction between the views of theologians representing official religion, and the needs and perceptionsof ordinary believers. Where vii Preface the daily realitiesof the latter makea traditional view seemoutdated, the former usually adapttheir teachings.On the otherhand, official religion can act as a brakewhen developmentsthreaten to happentoo fast or be too radical, thus preventing a situation where modem beliefs are obviously at variancewith earlier teachings.Where this is the case,the role of official r~ligion in the developmentof contemporaryreligious traditions is obvious and important. Zoroastrianism,on the other hand, differs from most other great religions in that its academictheology virtually stoppedevolving some centuriesafter the Islamic conquestof Iran (7th century CE). As Islam consolidatedits hegemonyin the centuriesthat followed, Zoroastrian communitiesgradually becametoo marginal and poor to support the substantial group of scholar priests who until then had kept the intellectual and theological traditions of the faith alive. The remaining priestly scholars,it seems,began to devotetheir energiesto writing down as much as they could of the ancientlearned tradition, which until then had largely beentransmitted orally. Later generationsof priests,both in Iran and India, continuedto study someof the knowledgecontained in these writings, but few further attempts were apparently made to formulate an a~thoritative Zoroastriansystem of doctrinesin the light of the conditionsof the times. For a long time, it seems,the religious life of Zoroastriancommunities was such that this causedfew problems. For the Parsis this changedin the early 19th century, when confrontations with Christianity and challengesposed by Western religious concepts and attitudes had the effect of calling into question the validity of traditionalreligion generally,and priestly learningin particular.The 19th centuryfurther sawmany Parsis receiving a Western-typeeducation and witnessedthe rise of a powerful Parsi merchantclass. All this led some Parsisto seekto define their theology,and contributedto the emergence of a series of religious movements springing from a sense of disenchantmentwith traditional Parsi religion. Thesemovements, some of which still playarole in the life of the communitytoday, generallyaim to rediscoveror redefine the teachingsof Zoroastrianism,and in some cases the deeper meaning of ritual, with a view to establishing a reconstructed,authentic form of the religion. One of the reasonswhy thesedevelopments have not so far led to the emergenceof a unified 'reformed'Zoroastrianism is clearly to be sought in the profound dissimilaritiesbetween the teachingsof the movements themselves.A further reasonmay be that a very different understanding of the nature and function of religion - emphasisingorthopraxy, faith, and a devotionallife that is not stronglybased on intellectualbeliefs - is deeply ingrained in the community, and most of its members have presumablybeen reluctant to rethink their religious lives deeplyenough to accepta form of religion basedon unfamiliar assumptions.However, viii Preface the activities of the religious movements did have the effect of introducingto the communitya theoreticalconception of Zoroastrianism as a religion largely basedon the authority of the classical tradition, intelligible teachings,and personalbelief. The relationshipbetween the classicaland modemtraditions among Indian Zoroastriansis thereforea complex one. The Parsi tradition is of course ultimatelybased on classicalZoroastrianism; in the courseof time it seemsto havedeveloped along its own lines in manyrespects, and it is now again influencedby the ideal of an authoritative,'true' form of the religion which is closely associatedwith ancientteaching. However, as we saw, thereis no consensusas to the precisecharacter of this ideal form of Zoroastrianismand its impact on the religious lives of many Parsisis demonstrablyminimal. Clearly, these factors contribute to the difficulty of studying modem Parsi Zoroastrianism.As was noted earlier, few Westernscholars have so far paid much attention to this form of the religion. The Parsis' own writings on religious questions are heterogeneous;apart from some esotericworks, their publicationsare usually influencedto someextent by Western-inspireddefinitions of religious concepts.If the views advanced in these works had achieved the status of a new orthodoxy, or even contributedto the emergenceof a consensuson Zoroastrianteaching, they could presumablyhave servedas a legitimatebasis for researchon Parsi religion. Since this is plainly not the case,however, it would seemthat modem Parsi religion cannotbe adequatelyunderstood on the basis of written sources alone, whether classical or modem. The traditional, deductive or prescriptive method of research, which accepts an authoritative form of a religion as a norm in the light of which other forms or aspects of the faith can be understood, therefore seems problematic in