Sects: India’s Prosperous Parsis

In the West, Zarathustra, or Zoroaster, is a name meaningful chiefly to crossword-puzzle addicts and readers of Nietzsche. To the 100,000 Parsis of India who last week celebrated their New Year, the most sacred feast on their calendar, Zoroaster is still the one great prophet, the man who gave them their monotheistic faith in the god Ahura Mazda.

The last adherents of a great religion that once enlisted millions of ad herents throughout central Asia,&* the Parsis have traditionally influenced In dia well out of proportion to their numbers. Prosperous, cosmopolitan, literate, they dominate today the business community of Bombay. Industrialist J.R.D. Tata, whose steel mills constitute India’s largest privately owned enterprise, is a Parsi; so are General Sam Hormuzji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, one of India’s top military leaders, and Zubin Mehta, conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. Parsi girls for the last three years have won the title of Miss India.

The Balance Sheet. In a nation with a 25% literacy rate, the Parsis can boast that more than 90% of the sect’s members can read and write. Despite the widespread hunger and poverty of India, the Parsi poor rarely starve; in the city of Bombay alone, one trust established by wealthy members of the sect provides low-income housing for more than 6,000 Parsi families and welfare payments for the unemployed.

Self-sufficiency and mutual aid are key elements of Zoroastrianism, a faith whose origin and even basic tenets are obscured in mystery. Although some devout Parsis claim that Zoroaster was born about 6000 B.C., most Western scholars agree that he lived and taught in Persia during the 6th century B.C.-an era of religious (lowering that also saw the birth of Buddha and Confucius and the revival of Judaism after its Babylonian exile.

The son of a wealthy landowner, Zoroaster apparently rejected the prevailing polytheism of his age and taught that the one true god was Ahura Mazda, who was to be served by self-sacrifice rather than blood sacrifice. Although Ahura Mazda was the supreme lord of creation, his influence over the world was challenged nonetheless by a lesser god of evil, whom Zoroaster’s followers later named Ahriman. Caught up in the unending war of these two deities, man was constantly faced with an existential choice of doing good or ill; at the end of his life, his personal balance sheet of good and evil deeds would determine whether he went to Vahishta-ahu (heaven) or to hell.

According to Parsi tradition, Zoroaster was assassinated at the age of 77 by an unbeliever while worshiping at a fire temple. Within a century after his death, his teachings seem to have been accepted as the state religion by the Persian Emperor Artaxerxes. Although the faith was driven underground after Persia’s conquest by Alexander the Great, Zoroastrian ideas circulated widely in the Middle East. Almost certainly the magi who came to Bethlehem to honor the newborn Jesus were Zoroastrians, and many scholars believe that echoes of Zoroastrian theology can be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Revived by the Sassanid dynasty during the 3rd century A.D., Zoroastrianism died out once again when Persia was conquered by the Moslem caliphs 400 years later. Rather than submit to Islam, the ancestors of today’s Parsis took refuge in India during the 8th century; to this day, the sect’s name bespeaks its Persian origin.

Fire & Urine. How accurately the Parsis reflect Zoroaster’s own teachings is a matter of much scholarly debate. Many of their religious customs—such as abstention from both beef and pork —appear to have been borrowed from Islam or Hinduism. But in their temples, which nonbelievers are forbidden to enter, the Parsis still worship fire, which was Zoroaster’s chosen symbol of divine power. At their marriage feasts, wedded couples ceremoniously sip bull’s urine because it allegedly purifies both body and soul.

The Parsis also practice what may be the world’s most unique burial custom: instead of being interred or cremated, the bodies of the dead are stripped naked and left on “towers of silence” to be devoured by vultures. Four of these walled, bone-filled areas, tended by humble corpse bearers and barred to all others, including Zoroastrian priests, occupy sites on the outskirts of Bombay.

Although accustomed to being a hidden remnant of the true faith, Parsis today are seriously worried that their ancient religion may die out. Traditionally opposed to proselytizing, the Parsis still excommunicate a woman who marries outside the sect, refuse to accept her children into the faith. Not only is intermarriage more common today, but younger Parsis are growing indifferent to the elaborate rituals and obscure doctrines of the faith. Relatively few Parsis can even read the three extant volumes containing Zoroaster’s teachings, which are written in an ancient Persian dialect. Although proud of their history, many Parsis increasingly regard the religion they profess as an expression of a unique cultural heritage rather than as a faith to be lived.

*There are also about 20,000 Zoroastrians in Iran.