History of Zoroastrianism/Chapter 47

The Deva-worshippers of India greet the Daeva-abjurers of Iran. After the collapse of the house of Sasan, several hundreds of the adventurous people, not finding any human court in which to lodge their complaints, resolved to abandon their fatherland in quest of a more peaceful home, where they could practise their faith with a liberty of conscience so ruthlessly denied them by their conquerors. A burning passion for their ancient home and love for liberty of conscience clashed The latter conquered and a noble band of Iranian exiles now streamed to India in successive waves Here they found an asylum. India, the land of the devas, magnanimously welcomed the fugitives of Iran, whose religion had branded their devas as evil. The fire of Ormazd found a hospitable hearth in the new land which the early Parsi settlers adopted as their home. The Parsi athravan tended his sacred fire, even as the Hindu atharvan did his in the next street The Parsi Mobad performed the Yasna ceremony and squeezed the Haoma plant, as his Hindu Brahman neighbour practised his Yajnya rites and pounded Soma

Reviling each other's gods, yet living peacefully together. We have already seen that the points of difference between the religious beliefs of the two nations are as many as are the points. of resemblance between them. This is seen in the daily practices of the two peoples. The Hindu rises in the morning to begin his day's work with the devout utterance of the devas on his lips, the Parsi leaves his bed cursing them. One invokes them with his uplifted hands, the other lashes them with his sacred girdle. The Hindu anathematizes the asuras as the infernal beings, the Parsi pays his homage to the ahuras as the celestial beings. Such is the manner in which the Indian and Iranian branches of the Aryan family have behaved towards each other for a thousand years in India where they met each other once more after the long ages of separation.

​A period of literary arrest. The unsettled times that followed the first settlement of the Parsis in India were unfavourable to literary activity. Centuries full of hardships intervened before Zoroastrianism gained a real foothold in India and secured for its adherents some means of livelihood in this new country of their adoption. Severe was the struggle and terrible was the trial of the faithful throughout the vicissitudes of all this early period. Poverty, an insurmountable barrier to progress of any kind, haunted the faithful followers of Zoroaster for a long time. When we look at the condition of the times, it is no wonder that the literary movement among the Parsis was arrested for a considerable interval before these emigrants succeeded in adapting themselves to the changed circumstances in which they were placed. Religious knowledge orally transmitted from generation to generation, however, kept alive the native tradition; but no written works have come down to us of this period. With our slender resources we are unable to ascertain the precise scope of the literary activity of the first five or six centuries of Parsi settlement in India.

Pahlavi studies. After an absolute blank extending over a period of three centuries, we come across the only literary composition of this period in the form of the Pahlavi inscriptions in one of the Kanheri caves near Bombay, which record the two visits of some Parsi travellers in 1009 and 1021 A.D.^[1] Pahlavi seems to have long remained the literary language of the learned Zoroastrian priests in India; and the traditional knowledge of the language had not become extinct. Though the insufficiency of data prevents us from saying anything with certainty, we cannot be wide of the truth when we say that a number of learned priests had with unflagging zeal kept the torch of Iranian scholarship burning The masterly Sanskrit version of the Pahlavi texts done in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries is an eloquent evidence of this.

Parsi-Sanskrit literature. Some of the Parsi scholars, who frequently came into contact with the learned Brahmans, seem to have adopted Sanskrit, the learned language of the land, for their literary productions. The extant Parsi literature produced in this tongue comprises the translation into Sanskrit of the ​greater part of the Avestan Yasna, Khordah Avesta, and Aogemadaecha, based on their Pahlavi versions; also a Sanskrit translation of the Pahlavi works Menuk-i Khrat, Shikand Gumanik Vijar, and Arda Viraf Namah, and the Sanskrit version of the Pazend Ashirvad. The most illustrious representative of this group of Parsi Sanskritists is Neryosangh Dhaval, who flourished about 1200 A.D. He has been one of the most eminent doctors of the Parsi church in India, and has made the versions of the major portion of the Zoroastrian work that has come down to us accompanied by a Sanskrit version. We shall not pause here to consider the question of the literary merit of this particular form of the literature, as that lies beyond the pale of the present work. As the Sanskrit works are merely the faithful translations of the Pahlavi texts, and not any original compositions, we look in vain in them for any side-information on the religious thought of this period. What we do find from them is the fact that the religious studies were prosecuted with great zeal at this period, and that the knowledge of Avestan in general, and of Pahlavi and Sanskrit in particular, among the learned clerics was of a superior order.