PARSEE, a name given to the Zoroastrians, now scattered through different parts of Southern Asia, but principally located in Bombay and Gujerat. They are called Parsee because they came to India from Pars or Fars, the province of Persia known as Persis by the Greeks. They are of that Aryan race who in primeval times dwelt in Aryana-Vaejo, the old Aryan home believed to have been on the banks of the Araxes, near where the city of Atropatene afterwards stood, far north of India, where winter reigned for ten months of the year. The race parted into two great branches : the East Aryan or Brahmanical moved towards India, and the West Aryans, whom the modern Parsees represent, journeyed west wards. The great bulk of the Aryans in Persia adopted Muhammadanism when overthrown by the Arabs, and a small remnant, adhering to their Zertushtrian religion, left their country. The emigrant Parsees retreated to Khorasan, where they remained for a hundred years ; afterwards retreated to Hormazd or Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, where they remained for 15 years, and then sailed for Diu, a small island to the N.W. of the peninsula of Gujerat. After a few years they sailed to Sanjan at the S. extremity of Gujerat pro vince. A small remnant race exists in Yezd. In Persia, in 1881, there were only 500 families who were subject to the Jazia or poll-tax, could not wear white robes, could not build a new house, could not appear on horseback, had to pay transit dues on passing from place to place with goods; instances were occurring of girls and women being forcibly converted to Muhammadanism ; convert could claim all the heritable property ; in purchasing land, one-fifth of its value bad to be paid as fees to the mullas.
Being persecuted and annoyed by the Muham madans, most of their countrymen have emigrated to India. A handful of persecuted exiles, living in a foreign land, surrounded for 1200 years by idolatry, and persecuted at times by religious fanaticism, the Parsees have still preserved their national type and character and their original worship. Though they have not altogether escaped contamination, and have adopted many super stitious ceremonies and notions of the Hindus, they have always recoiled from degenerating to the worship of idols, and have clung tenaciously to the idea that they were worshippers of only the invisible Hormazd, the great God. The Parsees believe in the existence of angels, created by God, and having the power given them to assist and benefit mankind. But they centre their
prayers and their hopes, above all, in Hormazd. Their whole morality is comprised in three words, —Pure thought, word, and deed ; their reward and punishment depends upon their fulfilment of this injunction, and their pardon on the will and mercy of God. The worship of fire, and the ordinary receptacle of the sacred fire, is called Adurian, the more expensive places, of which there are six in India, being called Atash - bahram. They now have a heaven ; and the place to which the souls of the good go, is Gurasman Bahasht.
They have a hell, called Dozakh, which they describe as a dark place with fiends, and where Ahriman or Shaitan dwells as the areh-fiend. They are strict in their ritual observances, particu larly those inculcated for purification. The kusti or sacred thread has frequently to be removed from the person; and their families, like those of the Jews, Muhammadans, and Hindus, dwell in rooms apart. They have 101 attributes or names of the deity. Before prayer they wash their hands and feet, take off the kusti, pray, and again fasten the kusti. In their prayer, they first recite the Saroshbaz, Sarosh being an angel, in heaven. They then pray to Kliiirshtul, the sun, to an angel named Mahir (Miltir ? the sun), and to Horniazd, the beneficent principle. Women also usually pray. While they were still dwelling in Bactria, Zertusht, known to the western world as Zoroaster, reformed the W. Aryan worship. Zoroaster's reform in Bactria occurred about the time of :penes, or about 3500 B.C. The Parsees of India, however, maintain and quote as their authority (Haug's1 translation) the Gathas, and the good prin ciple is distinctly noticed in the Gathas, songs of Zertusht. He is altogether distinct from another Zoroaster, the Median conqueror of Babylon, who vanquished the realm and city of the Chaldees, and founded the second Babylonian dynasty. in the year 2234 B.C. He was a priest of the fire-worshippers at a time when the doctrine of a duality of good and evil was already in vogue, though the name of Ahriman does not occur in the oldest records. What is understood by evil is evil thought (Ako mano) or falsehood ; and this is contrasted with good thought, which is identical with the good principle, and is now known as llorima2d or Hormazd. An absolute personification of the good principle is, however, hardly to be found in the songs of Zertusht.