PARSIS, piir'sz, or PARSEES (Pers., hind.
Persian. lire-worshiper). The mod, rim Zoroastrians, especially in India. where. in 1901. they numbered 91,190. Les- than a hundred :years after the .\rati imasion in the seventh century, and the fall of the Iranian king dom and faith, a considerable number of Zoroastrians left Persia to gain greater re ligious liberty, and moved as a eommunity with their priests down to the city of Ormuz. on the Persian Gulf. After residing there some fifteen vears, they determined to seek flue shores of India, and th;.y landed first on the island of Diu, mill the coast of Kathiawar. Here they re mained for nineteen years until eireun stanees brought them farther south. They handed in 71i; at Sanjan, sonic distance to the north of the modern Bombay, and settled alining the after with certain simple regulations. In 77.5 a second band seems to have joined these pioneers. and together they formed a community. while]] flourished for more than live hundred years. In 1315 the Alohattimedans who were invadimr India attacked the Parsis of jam who had made an with their !limb] protectors. The allies were defeated. Silllj in was destroyed, and the Parsis were to sock refuge in the Bit:ulna hills, where they kept alive their sacred fire and preserved their ancient In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the Zoroastrians spread quite widely till-. ugh Gujarat. settling in Surat, Naysari. 1:01111,fly, and other places. The settlement in Bombay be4min as early as the time of the Portuguese 1.111).“ i?in 1530'11;61 I The Bombay Presiffiney has remained the centre of the Parsi popithition of India, althomrli representatives of the ,om inunitv are to be I a- far northward as PeshaWar. as far as Calcutta. and as far to the south as or i'V1.11 Cm.y1011. are well 6,-,10, and a large pro portion of them wealthy. They are often called the Jews of the East.
The Parsis have in general remained faithful to the a f their and creed. But in s,vionee of cmigrath n from Persia. and becanse also of their contact with the !hiatus and others. some changes ha NT crept into their N, r have tlubv kept free from sectarian controversy. As early as 11;81i there is evidenee of ZI i2ormis dispute, as to supremacy of position. between the priests of Naysari and the original clerical leaders of Sanjan. Early in the eighteenth cen tury another dispute arose with regard to the dating of the calendar, which in India gradually fell a month behind the Persian Zoroastrian calendar, because of failure properly to introduce the intercalary mouth. This resulted in dividing the Parsi community into two sects, and Radials. The Shenshahis adhered to their custoniary Indian reckoning of 'motifs, without the intercalation, but the kadmis adopted the Persian reckoning with the month duly inserted; thus the Shenshahi calendar remains still a month behind the Kadmi. They are gener ally united on the main tenets with regard to their god Ormazd (q.v.), their prophet Zarathuslitra (see ZOROASTER), and a belief in angels and archangels. They follow the same
general rites, feasts. fasts, manners, and customs. In theology they are strongly monotheistic to day. At present. however, a belief in the resur rection of the body seems less pronounced among them than their sacred texts would appear to warrant. As to the doctrine of spiritual au thority, the infallibility of their Dasturs is unhesitatingly questioned by the less strict conformists, but all unite in acknowledging the religious leadership of those priestly heads.
If we may judge from the old Greek accounts of the Persian faith, the Parsis, from time ho memorial, have kept up the idea of ceremonial purification. Scrupulous care is taken to pre serve the elements, earth, fire, and water, from defilement, especially from dead matter. Nor would a strictly orthodox Parsi to-day spit into the fire or hlow out a light, any more than in the days of Cyrus, although in practical matters they often have to make concessions, and l'arsis may even serve in the fire department of Bom bay. Many who are less strict have taken to smoking tobacco, although this is not in keep ing with the tenets of their faith. To the desig nation 'Fire-worshipers,' which is so often ap plied to them, they strongly object, for their religion teaches the presence of Ormazd behind the fire. which stands merely as one of the em blems of his power. As in the days of the Avesta. they still wear the sacred shirt and girdle ,(now called stidrah and kusti), and their priest ly class are conspicuous for their white flowing robes.
Some of the present Parsi observances con !meted with birth and marriage may show slight traces of influence from the Hindus, but the Tarsi rites connected with death have remained most individual and striking. As is well known. they expose the bodies of their dead on Dakh mas, or Towers of Silence, to be devoured by vultures. in this they adhere strictly to the precepts of the Avesta, although through force of circumstances, or otherwise, they are occa sionally obliged to forego this manner of dis posing of the dead. As a community, their moral is ranked very high. In matters of edu 'cation, especially female education, they are very advanced for Orientals. In all that relates to progress and civilization they are inclined large ly to follow European examples. There is a growing tendency among them to spread a knowl edge of their ancient sacred literature, and nu merous editions or reprints of Avesta and Pah lavi texts and translations are yearly published by them. For acts of charity, benevolence, and generosity they are conspicuous. On the Parsis of Persia, see GDEDERS.
Consult: Karaka, History of the l'arsis (Lon don, ; Haug and %Vest, Essays on the Par sis - (3d ed., ib., 18S1) \lodi, "The Religious System of the Pa rsis," in The World's Parlia ment of Religions, vol. ii. (Chicago. 1893) ; Ilharucha, Zoroastrian Religion and Customs (Bombay, 1893) ; Seervai and Patel. Gujarat Parsis from Their Earliest Settlement to the Present Time (ib., 1898) ; Menant, Les l'arsis, Flistoire des communautes Zoroastriennes de l'Inde (Paris, 1898).