ART. VI.-THE PARSEES. The Parsees, their History, Manners, Customs, and Religion. By DOSABHOY Parsisme. By M. MICHEL NICOLAS. Revue Germanique. Mazdeisme. By M. HAUG. Two articles in Revue Cotemporaine. THOUGH few in number, the Parsees possess an interest for the Christian scholar surpassing that of any Oriental nation except the chosen people of God. Under the various names of Magians, Guebres, Gebirs, and Parsees, they have maintained a distinct national existence, a peculiar national creed, and a system of religious worship, varying in a marked degree from the nations by which they were surrounded, from a period prior to the birth of Abraham to the present day. They are not, and never have been, as a people, idolaters. No idols have ever defiled their temples, no sacrifices have ever stained their altars. They have been stigmatized for ages as fire-worshipers, but they have always indignantly repudiated the charge, and we believe with truth, except, perhaps, in the case of the most ignorant among them. They preserve indeed what they call the sacred fire in their temples, but so did the Jews. They offer no sacrifices to it, but burn incense lighted from it in their temples. Their own account of this worship is, that they regard fire and the sun as special symbols, by which Ormuzd, the supreme being, manifests his good-will and beneficence toward men, and hence they are to be regarded as sacred, but not to be considered as objects of worship, or to be addressed as existences. As a people, the Parsees have been acknowledged, even by their enemies, in all ages, to be virtuous, chaste, brave, regardful of the rights of others, and eminently good citizens. A people who have thus maintained their integrity for four thousand years have a claim to be better known and understood by Christian nations; and it is with a satisfaction in which we are certain our readers will participate, that we present a brief sketch of their history, their religious views, and their present condition, drawn from recent works published by themselves, and from the testimony of those who have long resided among them, and whose eminent scholarship, not less than their thorough familiarity with the Parsee customs and worship, qualifies them to be competent witnesses on the subject. The descendants of Shem who settled in Persia and Media seem to have retained, with less admixture of error than other nations, the traditions which, through the patriarch Noah, had been preserved of the Supreme Being who had placed our first parents in Eden, and of the tempter whose machinations drove them thence. These traditions were carefully preserved by a class called MAGI, or wise men, who, though not officiating in all cases as priests, yet possessed, by common consent, an authority analogous to that of the priests of other nations. For some centuries these wise men maintained the primal traditions nearly or quite in their original purity, and through their high reputation as the guardians of the antediluvian traditions exerted a powerful influence on the adjacent nations. Long ages after the sensual inhabitants of the plain of Shinar had reared altars and offered human sacrifices to deities which personated their greed, their violence, and their lust, the grave sages of Iran adored only the holy and all-powerful Ormuzd, who made his sun to rise alike upon the evil and the good. But human nature is corrupt and prone to fall, and the time came when the Persian sages lapsed from the purity of their worship, and though perhaps never falling into absolute idolatry, yet dealt in incantations and talismans against the powers of evil, and probably even sought by some homage to avert the wrath of Ahriman, whom by this time they had exalted into a being of malignant nature, and of almost equal power with Ormuzd. Ages passed on, and the pure faith of the early Magi seemed destined to fade from the memory of the inhabitants of Iran; but at length a reformer arose, Zurtosht or Zartusht by name, (the Zoroaster of the Greeks,) and sought to restore the purity of the early Persian worship. The period of Zurtosht's career is not satisfactorily settled. Some have supposed that there were several of the name, and that the acts of these had all been attributed to one. This theory took its rise from the supposed fact that the last of the name, the Zoroaster of the Greeks, was cotemporary with Darius Hystaspes, who ascended the throne B. C. 521. This idea gained plausibility from the apparent coincidence of the name of Gushtasp (the monarch often spoken of in the fragments of Zurtosht's books still extant) with Darius's surname of Hystaspes. So strong a proof of their identity did this seem that many of the Parsees of India, whose traditions were broken by their exile, and who possess but fragments of the sacred books, had adopted it. Recent explorations in Media, however, have brought to light inscriptions and tablets which materially conflict with this view, and indicate that the Gushtasp of the Zend- Avasta was, as the internal evidence of the work itself would seem to demonstrate, a monarch of much earlier date. The portions of the Zend- Avasta now extant are addressed to a pastoral and agricultural people, not highly civilized, and not congregated in large towns; yet, for some centuries prior to the time of Darius Hystaspes, a large portion of the Persian population had been dwellers in cities, and they were among the foremost nations of the East in civilization and refinement. For these and other reasons M. Nicolas, whose article on this subject in the Revue Germanique gives evidence of profound research, is inclined to place the advent of Zurtosht 1100 years earlier, or about 1600 B. C., thus making him a cotemporary of Moses. Zurtosht was born, according to the Persian traditions, at Rai or Raghai, in Media. His father's name was Poroshusp, and his mother's Doghdo or Daghda. An angel, it is stated by his biographers, with the true Oriental love for the supernatural, presented to Poroshusp a glass of wine, and the conception of Zurtosht followed. At his birth the counselors of the governor of the province, jealous of the honor conferred on Poroshusp by the angel, prompted their master to destroy the child, but the efforts made for this purpose failed. During the childhood of the future reformer these. same malignant counselors sought his destruction many times. Once he was cast into a blazing fire, but escaped unscathed; once he was exposed in a narrow passage to be trampled to death by a herd of half-wild oxen, but they carefully turned aside; repeatedly was he thrown in the way of wolves and other wild beasts of the forest, but always was preserved from their fury. On attaining his thirtieth year he left his native town and came with his family to the Persian capital. Here for ten years he remained in seclusion and devoted himself to the study of the earliest traditions of the Magi, and to the effort to comprehend as fully as mortal might the character and will of Ormuzd. At the expiration of this period he presented himself at the court of Gushtasp, bearing in one hand the sacred fire, and in the other a cypress twig, and demanded audience of the monarch. When the king inquired who he was and why he came thus before him, Zurtosht announced himself as the prophet of Ormuzd, who had been sent to teach him and his people the path of truth, virtue, and piety. Gushtasp and his courtiers at first ridiculed and persecuted the prophet, but the miracles he wrought convinced them, and ere long the monarch gave the weight of his influence in favor of the reformed religion, and two of his highest officers, Furshorter, his prime minister, and Jamosp, the wisest of his counselors, became its most active propagandists. His doctrines thus received, Zurtosht desired to perpetuate them. and brought forward as a divine revelation the fruit of his ten years' study and meditation. He gave to this collection of twenty-one volumes, which was at once a system of cosmogony, theology, doctrine, ritual, and litany, the name of Avasta; and as it was written in the Zend, the ancient language of the Persians, a language prior even to the Sanscrit, it was called the Zend-Avasta. Of this work there are now extant but three volumes, and fragments of four or five others. So far as can be judged from these portions, it would seem to have been a compilation of the earliest and most reliable traditions of the Magi, with a cosmogony and ritual of Zurtosht's own invention. His royal patron received the work as a divine revelation, and immediately took measures for its diffusion throughout his realm. Twelve thousand hides were, by his orders, converted into parchment for its transcription, and numerous scribes employed in copying it. Nor was Gushtasp's zeal satisfied with its propagation throughout his own dominions. Missionaries were sent to other lands to proclaim the doctrines of the Zend- Avasta; and before Zurtosht's death it was professed by most of the adjacent nations, and had even penetrated into India. One stout-hearted king, however, Arjasp, the ruler of Turan, opposed its introduction into his realm, and persecuted bitterly its adherents. Exasperated perhaps by his obstinacy and hostility, Zurtosht departed from his hitherto peaceful policy and persuaded his royal patron to declare war against the infidel king. The war thus commenced was protracted through many years, and victory inclined alternately to either side. At one time Arjasp won several battles, and seemed to have so nearly conquered the followers of the prophet that he made extensive preparations for a massacre of all the believers in the Zend-Avasta; but the scale soon turned, and at length thoroughly subdued, he and his people yielded to the king of Iran and professed their belief in the doctrines they had so long opposed. During this long and sanguinary war Zurtosht died, or, as some say, was murdered by the Turanians. He had reached the age of seventy-six years. The Zend-Avasta continued to be the religious standard and oracle of the Parsees down to the time of Alexander the Great, who conquered Persia and destroyed many of the sacred books. That these doctrines were prevalent in the time of Darius the Mede (Cyaxares II.) and of Cyrus, who assumed that name, signifying the SUN, at the time of his accession to the throne, will be admitted by every attentive reader of the sacred or profane history which records the deeds of these two monarchs. The attempt of Alexander to destroy the copies of the Zend Avasta in circulation among the people, that he might introduce the Greek mythology and hero-worship was followed, a century or two later, by a more persistent effort on the part of the idolatrous Arabs, who ravaged the country to obtain and burn every copy of the sacred books in existence. They succeeded but too well; for eighteen hundred years no complete copy has been known to exist; and though fragments remained, and the more pious of the Persians sought to retain and transmit by oral traditions the religion of their fathers, yet numberless corruptions had crept in, and in the first two centuries of the Christian era these monotheists of twenty centuries seemed fast lapsing into idolatry, just as the other nations of Western Asia were rousing themselves to shake it off. It was at this period, 226 A. D., that a wise and pious prince, Ardeshir Babekan, ascended the throne, and almost at the commencement of his reign sought to restore to his country the faith of their forefathers. He assembled all the learned men and priests of the empire, more than forty thousand in number, it is said, to consult together upon the best means of restoring the ancient purity of their national religion. From this vast concourse a body of wise and learned men were selected, who chose the most eminent of their number for piety and learning, Ardai Veraf, to prepare a volume, which they critically examined and approved. This work, ARDAIVERAF-NAMAH, (the revelations of Ardai Veraf,) bears a considerable general resemblance to the Divina Commedia of Dante. It is a vision of the future condition of men, both the good and the evil, and in its conversations presents most of the distinguishing doctrines of the Zend- Avasta. It is still extant, and though not regarded by the Parsees as one of their sacred books, has exerted a powerful influence over their religious history. In the latter part of the seventh century of the Christian era the Parsees, defeated and overwhelmed by the Saracens, who would tolerate no faith which did not acknowledge the divine mission of Mohammed, emigrated in great numbers to India, and located themselves in Sanjan and other portions of Guzerat. Industrious and frugal, and treated with kindness by the Hindu rajahs, they became during the next seven or eight centuries a wealthy and powerful people, adhering strictly to their traditions and not adopting the Hindu idolatries or worship. Toward the close of the fifteenth century the Mohammedans undertook the subjugation of Guzerat, but found formidable enemies in the Parsees, from whose minds eight centuries had not sufficed to efface the wrongs inflicted by the followers of Islam on their ancestors. The Hindus, too, resisted the Mohammedan invaders, but in the bloody conflict which followed FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XII.-28 |