Dorab Saklatwalla Memorial Series No. II. PARSIS OF ANCIENT INDIA, BY SHAPUBJI KAVASJI HODIVALA, .. A . 192O THE SANJ VARTAMAN PRESS. \ M Dorab Saklatwalla Memorial Series No. II. PARSIS OF ANCIENT INDIA. With References from Sanskrit Books, Inscriptions, &c. BY SHAPURJI KAVASJI HODIVALA, B . A . (AUTHOR OF ZARATHUSHTRA AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES IN THE RIQVEDA.) PUBLISHED BY SHAPURJI KAVASJI HODIVALA, 3 E, Sleater Road, BOMBAY. " Printed by Rustom N. Vatchaghandy at the Sanj Vartaman Press, Nos. 22-24-26, Mint Road, Fort. 1920. DEDICflTED T O THE SACRED MEMORY O F *ate for. toorad famtetji & A PROMISING YOUTH AND A GOOD FRIEND SUDDENLY CUT OFF IN THE PRIME OF HIS LIFE, 2096717 " ' Our highest Religion is named the Worship of Sorrow.' For the son of man there is no noble crown, well worn or ill worn, but is a crown of thorns." Carlyh. Born Died 18-9-1890. 20-1-1919. PREFACE. BY MR. M. P. KHAREGHAT, I. C.S. (Retired.) This book consists of a number of accepted and based on a large papers on various subjects, all bear- amount of evidence is that after ing on the connection of Iranians the ancestors of the Indians came with India from the most ancient to India, the Iranian and Indian times upto about the sixteenth cen- branches, although in some contact, tury after Christ. It is evidently developed independently, that the the result of extensive study, patient separation took place long before compilation and thought. The the time of Zoroaster, that Zoroaster author Mr. Hodivala has written as was an Iranian and did all his work a scholar for scholars, in most cases on Iranian soil among Iranian fully quoting his authorities. But peoples. his book will also be interesting to Paryii the general reader, especially Parsi, and Prithu. with a taste for or history antiquities. That the Persians or Parthians are The author has done me the honour mentioned by name in the Rigveda of asking me to write the preface, is extremely doubtful. Both tradi- and I have accepted the task after tion and modern scholarship are some hesitation, as I have doubts opposed to this view.* In Rv. I- about my fitness for it. I have set 105-8 q^: very probably means down below my views about some "ribs," and in Rv. VII-83-1 of the many subjects dealt with by " 1$qKft: with broad sickles." the author likely to be of interest In Rv VIII- to the reader. As some of the sub- 6-46 q|f is a proper noun, but that jects are of a controversial nature, it means "Persian" there is no- views are likely to differ, and the thing to show. author has told me to very fairly In this connection it must be mine even express though they may remembered that the appellation not coincide with his. But " " my Persian came to be applied to main has been to object supplement, the whole Iranian nation only after not criticise. the rise of the Persian Achaeme- The Aryans. nians, long after the period of the Rigveda. Before then, it was con- From the very great similarity in fined to the people of Persis, the the ancient languages, thoughts, modern Fars, a region in the south- of traditions, rituals, and ways life west of Iran, very far from India, of the Iranians and Aryan Indians and the Iranians called themselves it has inferred that their ances- been by the name Airya. corresponding to tors must have formed a common the Indian 3TT^ Arya. The name of nation at there is such one time, and Persia does not occur even in the a mass of evidence to this support less is it to Avesta ; much likely that it is ac- inference, commonly occur in the Vedas. cepted by scholars. On the other the that the Zoroastri- * hand, theory See SSyana s commentary on the three ans were a colony from northern verses of the Rigveda quoted at page 2 of this book also the articles Parsii and Pri- India, that a schism took place ; thu in Macdonell and Keith's Vedic Index, there, and the Zoroastrians migrated and the authorities quoted there, and the westwards is one not commonly same words in Monier Williams' Sanikrit- accepted. The belief commonly Enjliih Dictionary. II Further, the Persians called We know from classical authors that themselves m Parsa as in the there were Parthian rulers in India the of the Christian Behistun inscriptions, and the Hin- about beginning and a class of coins found in dus were not likely to change that era, in later times and near India word to q?| Pami ; bearing usually legends in Greek and the Indian they had no difficulty in adopting Kharoshthi and Iranian names the correct word qR^ffaJ Parasika. script are attributed to these rulers, who For the reason last mentioned and are called Indo-Parthian by modern in the absence of other evidence it scholars.* In Indian inscriptions is also difficult to believe that the and literature the Pahlavas are tribal name used Panini re- ^ by often mentioned with the Sakas and ferred to the Persians, although it Yavanas, foreigners who came into is he knew the Persians, as likely India about the same period within he to the extreme north- belonged a few hundred years. It is inferred west of India and flourish- probably from these three facts, viz. (1) the ed about 300 B. C." (Macdonell's identity of the Iranian Pani- practical Sanskrit Litarature, p. 431). name Pahlav with the Indian Pah- ni's Parm would seem to have been lava, (2) the existence of Parthian a local tribe. rulers in India, and (3) the conjunc- The theory that the Persians were tion of the Pahlavas with the .Sakas known as Parsuas by the Assyrians and Yavanas in Indian literature, is denied by a competent authority that the Pahlavas were Parthians, words Ed. Meyer in the following and the inference is justifiable. On in his article on Persis in the Ency- the other hand it has to be noted clopaedia Britannica, llth Edition, that there does not appear to have Vol. XXI, p. 253 : "The Persians been found upto now any coin bear- are not mentioned in history before ing the word Pahlava, nor any ins- of the to or the time Cyrus ; attempt cription writing mentioning a identify them with the Parsua, a Pahlava with an indubitable Iranian district of the Zagros chains south name.t The name of the Pahlava of Lake Urmia, often mentioned by in Rudradaman's inscription at Gir- the Assyrians is not tenable." He nar mentioned at page 11 of this has made a similar statement in his book cannot be called indubitably article on Persia, Ancient History, Iranian. in the same 203. book, p. That the Pallavas qM of South- Pahlava. ern India were identical with the Pahlavas y%*53 is a theory based The name Pahlava y^Zft is gene- on slender foundations, and denied rally believed to have been applied by V. Smith in the second edition in India to the Parthians. The of his work 423, where he " p. is re- Iranian word Pahlav derived by writes : The name Pallava philologists from Parthava, and sembles Pahlava so closely that Dr. seems to have been applied in the Fleet and other writers have been first instance in Iran to Parthian disposed to favour the hypothesis magnates under the Arsacides and that Pallavas and Pahlavas were from them to have been transferred * later to the heroes of ai cient Iran.* See Vincent Smith's Early History of India 2nd Edition, p. 224 ff. This book * will be referred to later simply as V. See Ed. Meyer's article Parthia in the Smith's History. Encyclopaedia Brit, llth Ed.. Vol. XX, p. 811, and E. Wilhelm's article on Parthia f This is so far as I know, but I may be translated by Dastur Rustomji in the wrong. Of course such a name may be would Dastur Hoshung Memorial Volume) p. found in the future, and supply very 822 ff. good confirmation of the identification. Ill identical, and that consequently the red some centuries before Christ is of of little are works Southern Pallava dynasty Kan- very weight ; they chi should be considered as of of imagination, and the authors, Persian origin. But recent research seeming to mean only northern does not support this hypothesis, freigners in general, have named which was treated as probable in those known to them in their own the first edition of this work, and it times, the 6akas being included seems more likely that the Pallavas in the list of the former, and the were a tribe, clan, or caste which Hunas and Turushkas in that of was formed in the northern part of the latter. the existing Madras Presidency, possibly in the Vengi country, be- The Sanjan Landing. tween the Krishna and the Goda- There is no good reason to doubt van. the tradition that the great majority Parasika. of Parsis now living in India are descended from a band of Iranian There can be no reasonable doubt refugees, who landed at or near that the word Parasika tflT^ffa) means Sanjan in the early centuries of the and were Persian. The whole word including Yazdajardi Era, given there a Hindu ruler. But the suffix with the long vowel would asylum by the date of this and the seem to be Iranian, Parsik being the landing Pahlavi term for an inhabitant of identity of the Hindu ruler are mat- ters of about which various Pars, i.e.