GUEBRES, or GAURS, worshippers of fire, is the name of a religious sect which has subsisted in Asia from a very ancient period.
Mankind, in the most rude and barbarous state, are una voidably sensible of the dissemination of light and heat by the sun. His presence announces the day, while his absence covers the earth with darkness. His emanations are a powerful source of vegetation; and summer, which enables them to provide alike for transient wants and future neces sities, is denoted by his more protracted appearance. Hence it is not surprising, if, in gratitude for the benefits confer red by this luminary, some marks of adoration have fol lowed. Men, in most ages and in most countries, have worshipped the sun ; and fire, in his absence, has been sub stituted as a prototype, under different characters. Among the ancient nations following this practice, the Romans are most familiar to us, who preserved sacred fire, which was never to be extinguished, and which was guarded by the vestal virgins. But, anterior to their era, it appears that the worship of fire was widely spread over Persia, and re duced to an established form, acknowledged and received by a large proportion of the inhabitants long before the birth of Christ. A celebrated philosopher, Zoroaster, is report ed to have either founded a sect distinguished from all others by the adoration of fire, or, which is more consonant with the customs of mankind, to have reduced the practice to systematic order. Miraculous events attended his origin ; his life was, like that of all other lawgivers, a tissue of ex traordinary occurrences; and according to some of his fol lowers, he was taken up into heaven, instead of dying a natural death. Zoroaster was born about 589 years before Christ, and his disciples subsisted in Persia until the over throw of Jezdedjerd, king of that country, by the Mahome tan Caliph Omar; whence historians date the era of the mo dern Gabres from the first year of the reign of this sove reign. Some months after the death of Jezdedjerd, the persecution of the Mahometans induced many of them to withdraw to Kohistan, a mountainous district in the present province of Khorassan, where they dwelt for an hundred years. They subsequently emigrated to the island of Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf, where they remained fifteen years stationary ; and then sailing for India, landed at Diu. But, on consulting certain oracular declarations in their sacred writings, they discovered that their residence was not auspi cious here; and, again committing themselves to the sea, reached a fertile part of the coast, having experienced a frightful tempest on the voyage. The Prince of this ter
ritory received them favourably ; but observing them to be numerous and well armed, he engaged the observance of five separate conditions, before granting them permission to land; namely, that they should explain the mysteries of their faith, lay aside their arms, speak the language of India, and also that their women should appear unveiled, and that their nuptials, according to the custom of the country, should be performed at night. The Gabres, rinding noth ing in their books adverse to these conditions, gladly as sented, and landed, professing their desire for peace and tranquillity. On the other hand, the Indians, discovering the analogy of some of their principles to their own, per mitted them to settle where they chose ; and a portion of ground being selected, they built a city on it, which was •called Sanjan. Probably, in relation to the place from whence they had emigrated, they arc more generally call ed Parsees, and have subsisted towards a thousand years in Guzerat and other parts of the coast of India. Soon after their arrival, they obtained a new grant of land, whereon they erected a temple dedicated to fire, in pursuance of a former vow, if they should escape the storm that had assail ed them. Here they remained united for about three cen turies after the death of Jezdedjerd, when they dispersed to Baroach, Surat, and other places, while, in the lapse of two more, their city was gradually depopulated. The sovereign of Guzerat, however, being threatened by an invasion of Mahometans, anxiously recalled them, on which occasion 1400 were found capable of bearing arms ; but many of their number fell in an engagement with the ene my. Their city was pillaged, and the survivors fled, car tying the sacred fire along with them, in quest of another establishment, which they successively found and abandon ed. The fire was conveyed from place to place during several centuries, and at last the Gabres found an asylum in Surat, Bombay, and various settlements on the coast of Malabar, where they enjoy the full and undisturbed exer cise of their religion.