STUDIES ico PARS! HlSrVRY. \ BY M SHAHPURSHAH HORMASJI HODIVAIA, M. A it Principal (tnd Professor of Historij, v : % tn b n ,* 1920 Presented to the LIBRARY of the UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO by WiUard G. Oxtoby STUDIES IN PARSI HISTORY. BY SHAHPURSHAH HORMASJI HODiVALA, M. A. Principal and Professor of History y Bahauddin College, Junagadh. Bombay: 1920 PARSI ORPHANAGE M X \T THK T N PKTIT BY '=-^"'^"' '^""' '"'"" P RINTED "- - '--^•- =\!^.^;rp:^™"-- AND M. HORMASJI HODIVALA, A., PUBLISHED BY SH.-lAHPURSHAH JUNAGADH.„»^ ,t.„ AT THE BAHAUDDIN COLLEGE, CONTENTS : Page. The Traditional Dates of Parsi History ... 1 —36 The Sack of Sanjan ... ... ... ... ... ... 37 —66 Jadi Rana aud the Kissah-i-Saujan 67—dl The Kissah'i-Sanjan Translated 92-117 The Colophons of Mihirapan Kaikhusrd ,., 118-133 Was there a Parsi Fire Temple at Broach in 324 A. Y.? ... 134-148 Mahrvaid ... ... ••• ••• ••• ... ••» ••• 149-188 Some Ancient Parsi Documents 189-253 Some Parsi-Sanscrit Colophons 254-275 The Dates of the Persian Revayets 276-349 Pf?EFAGE. This is neither a compendious nor comprehensive History of the Parsis nor a Critical Dissertation on their origin, manners or customs. It is only a collection qf Essays written with the object of throwing fresh light on some dark <rorners of Parsi antiquities, by offering new solutions of old difficulties or unearthing facts which have hitherto escaped discovery. It is the product of twenty-five years' industrious study of the subject and of long-continued and persistent search for new materials and sources of information in all directions. The first paper is probably the one round which controversy will gather. The writer must leave his arguments to be merits to judged on their and beg remind critics that no finality is claimed for these suggestions which are avowedly tentative, and to which he will be the first abandon as soon as more satisfactory explanations are forthcoming. The second essay is the result of a somewhat meticulous study of the Musalman chronicles of Mahmud Begada for the purposes and from the viewpoint of Parsi history. In the third, some knowledge of the results of Hindu epigraphic research has been brought to bear on the elucidation of a synchronism which has puzzled two generations of Parsi scholars. The account of Mihrvaid and the paper which follows are based entirely on contem- porary documents discovered by the writer. In three other studies, the Postscripts of old Avesta-Pahlavi manuscripts have been, for the first time, laid under contribution for supplementing the meagre data for the history of the mediaeval period. One of these, the disquisi- tion on the ' Colophons of Mihrapan' has attracted the attention of European Orientalists and has even appeared in a French garb in the In the last Journal Asiatique (Sept.-Oct. 191 5). and longest contri- bution of the series, all the information that can be gleaned from the Persian Revaycts about Parsi worthies oftlie i6th and 17th centuries has been collected together and broughl under one view. At the same time, an attempt has been made to solve, in the light of the oldest and best manuscripts of these missives, a knotty point of Iranian chronology which has been frequently canvassed by Pahlavi scholars. It has not been possible to observe a strict uniformity in the transliteration of Oriental words and names, and the writer is also painfully aware that the book is not without its share of the typographer's ineptitudes. He can only express his regret for these and other blemishes and liope for their removal in a second edition. S. H. Hodivala. Jun'igadh^ i/th Dec. igzo. THE TRADITIONAL DATES OF PARSI HISTORY. the ( A paper read befare the Society for promotion of Tioroastrian Research on 25th October, 1913.) to I propose to devote an hour this evening an examination of those * traditional dates in the history of the Indian Parsis which, in spite of manifold contradictions and inconsistencies, are still quoted "with an almost unreasoning confidence by many otherwise well- informed persons, on account of their supposed antiquity or perhaps, only for want of anything better to take their place. It •must be a matter of sincere regret, all the same, to every one who desires to acquire and to diffuse a well-grounded knowledge of the history of our people in this country, that statements made on the margins and fly-leaves of comparatively recent manuscripts by persons of whose competence, sources of information and sometimes even names, we are most unblissfully ignorant, should continue to be taken upon trust and employed as arguments by scholars even in the twentieth century. I have said that very few of these statements are properly authenticated and that some of them are absolutely nameless. But this is not all. They exhibit the most bewildering diversity amongst themselves and, if we are to believe them, the same event (the arrival of the Parsis at Sanjan) occurred in 772, 895 and 961 Vikram Samvat, i. e. 716, 839 and 905 A.O. There is the same conflict as to the year in which the Persian Zoroastrians must, according to these dates, have first begun to abandon their homes for religion and conscience' sake. One of them would make it out to have occurred in 582 A.C., another about 651 AC, and a third as late as 721 A,C. ( 777 V. Samvat.) A much later event, about which for that reason, if for no other, we might suppose they would be in agreement, is the subject of a similar conflict. The Atash-Behram is said to have been brought from Bansdah to Navsari, according to one of these entries, in 1472 V. Samvat, i.e. 1416 A.C, according to another in V. Samvat 1475, *. e. 14^9 A.C., and not the least instructive fact about these rival dates is that both of them are demonstrably wrong, and that the Iranshah fire was taken to Navsari many years afterwards.! + Parsi Prakash p. 5 and Note. Tho best known and most important ol" tlu'sc tiaditional entries is the stAtcmcnt Avhich niivkcs Friday, Koz Ealinian, Mali Tir, Shravan Slmd 9, (V.S, 772) tlie date of the first landing of tho Persian Zoroastrians on Indian shores at Sanjan. For this there has hitherto been no older antlioiity than Dastnr Aspandiarji Kanidinji,—iu Avhose iianii)hlet on the Kabisah Controversy of 1820—Kculim Tarikh Pdrsi^ui Kasar— it iirst appears. But 1 have foinid it lately on a blank \n\gc. in a MS. eontaininj; the K ififiah-i-Savjcm and other tales in IVrsian verse, which belongs to Ervad Maneckji Unwalla and Avhith must bo at least one hundred and fifty years old. The actual words iu this Manuscrii)t are, The gist of Dastur Aspandiarji's narrative, -which throws light on some dark places, is that the Zoroastrians in Persia were, thanks to their knowledge of the Zend Avesta and the Janiaspi, warned forty-nine years before the accession of Yazdajird of the Arab domination that was to come and that some of them forthtvith abandoned their homes for the woods and hills of Kohistan, in which they spent a hundred years in all. ^^Mf. \^l 241^1 cl2(l a>ilHQ[l Ml«U(£l ffvt^ '-^[^ sniMt^ll U^h M<'^141 ^l^ "^hXi w'^.^^'ii q>HaMi {\<i<{[ Midi'il ^HicHid ^h^ d"Hl>i jAdi^i c-tw^ Mi^^iiH ci V(i 2HPl'^M2{W ^\H SHAH'S SHlMt^ ^li Vi<RlH^ 'UicrlSHl. dR \^ HlS- ^ i'-nl^i jA^i * --^ * \mlm (&n ^^ichmwi^i ^r ^c-ii ^it^i 1'^iqi c-ii3ii ^\^kh ^h Clit 811W Mi^iM^a '^}M^[, (pp. 122-6). He then tells the story of the fifteen years spent in Old Hormuz; and the nineteen at Div, adding on his own authority, (whatever it it the value ive may attach to ), that was at latter place that they acquired a knowledge of the Indian vernacular and Sanscrit learning and that they were obliged to seek a new home because the customs of the faith could not be properly observed there on account of the rule of the Portuguese ? Rule of the Portuguese at Div in th© 8th century of Christ ! 1 ^\'^W^\. ^MCH^l ^'-H'-H^A ^4^1 >iR^l KWiX^ ^K-fl -l«£l ^l^^ii. (p. 126). The novelty introduced by him in the tale of the storm is that the refugees vowed not only an Atashbehram but a Baj and Afriugan in the name of the angel on the Behram-roz of every month. (^>l^l y^^^R Xi'^'A %Ul ^l^ Cl'-il 5>ilK^<l3U-l i^mL-( p. 127). In the account of the landing also he is much more circum- stantial than the iCtsse/i. He informs us that the Raja forbade any one to land except four of their wisest, on which that number of Mobeds went up to the Hindu chief, and again affecting that Perfect Number of the Pythagoreans, he asserts that the four Mobeds asked for a four days' respite, when the Raja required them to expound the principles of their faith, which they did in sixteen shlokas—the square of four.—Then follows the important passage about the land- ing which has been the subject of endless discussion as well as confusion among us. dl^ Rl<rn^ ^Ri^l <3M^^ <3d^Hl^l ^i-H ?A^l ci?A ?R^ ^l^l ^im ?A^l (fecil. ( p. 149). There is nothing added to the Kissah account of the first Atash- behram except that the day of installation is said to have been Roz Adar Mah Adar, without, any mention of the year.