History of Zoroastrianism/Chapter 53

Beginning of the spirit of exclusiveness among the Parsis. We have already seen that the handful of the Parsi fugitives who emigrated to India after the final overthrow of the Persian empire in the middle of the seventh century had to face enormous difficulties in the earlier centuries of their settlement in the new home. The precarious condition in which they lived for a considerable period made it impracticable for them to keep up their former proselytizing zeal. The instinctive fear of disintegration and absorption in the vast multitudes among whom they lived created in them a spirit of exclusiveness and a strong feeling for the preservation of the racial characteristics and distinctive features of their community. Living in an atmosphere surcharged with the Hindu caste system, they felt that their own safety lay in encircling their fold by rigid caste barriers.

The community was divided regarding the question of admitting lower classes of aliens into its fold. Though the practice of an active religious propaganda had thus fallen into desuetude, the question of conversion does not seem to have died out entirely, for we find recorded in the Rivayat literature that a heated polemic regarding the subject was carried on during the latter part of the eighteenth century. With the beginning of economic prosperity, the Indian Parsis, we learn, were in the habit of purchasing male and female slaves of low Hindu castes. These slaves, in many cases, were invested with sacred shirt and girdle and admitted into the Zoroastrian fold by the priests at the request of their masters. Those members of the community who were opposed to the mingling of their blood with that of such a low class of people denied to these converts the full privileges of a true believer. The contesting parties applied to their coreligionists in Persia for their advice and decision in the matter. The point made by those who favoured the cause of the ​new converts was that the Parsis of India who owned slaves for their work not only often had them admitted to the Mazdayasnian faith in accordance with the tenets of the religion, but also, without any religious scruples, partook of food prepared by them, and even permitted them, at the season festival to prepare the sacred cakes used for consecration and sacrificial purposes. It was urged that having allowed the converted slaves all such rights of a true Zoroastrian in their lifetime, certain priests as well as laymen objected to the corpses of these slaves being deposited in the Tower of Silence when they died. The Iranian high priests, in replying to their inquiring brothers in India advised them in the beginning to take precautionary measures in all such conversions that no harm should thereby be done to the religion and to the community. It was certainly an act of great merit, they proceeded, to purchase alien children and bring them up as Zoroastrians. It was unfair and highly objectionable, they added, nay it was an inexpiable sin, to refuse these unfortunate people all the privileges of a believer after once admitting them into the Zorastrian religious fold. It is taught by the scriptures, they argued, that all mankind will be brought over to the religion of Mazda in the time of the future saviour prophets. It was, therefore, the pious duty of every true Zoroastrian to help this great cause by leading all to the path of righteousness. In the face of such commands, they concluded, those who denied to the proselytes the full rights of a faithful believer did not deserve to be called Zoroastrians.

On another occasion in reply to a question about the conversion of such low-class people, the Iranian informant wrote that even a man who dug graves or followed the profession of burning the dead (two inexpiable sins according to Zoroastrianism), should be admitted into the Zoroastrian fold, provided his admittance would not be harmful to the faith.

The fear that the community might be swamped by the undesirable alien element was a reason why proselytizing fell into disfavour. We notice in that discussion that the different sections of the community were divided more on the social side of the question of proselytizing than on its religious side. The protest was chiefly based against the admixture of racial blood that the low class of the aliens introduced into the community. The Zoroastrians of Persia, who were trampled under the iron ​foot of their Moslem conquerors and had lived in a servile state, saw no objection whatsoever in receiving converts even from the lowest strata of the non-Zoroastrian peoples. But the case was different with the Indian Parsis, among whom the improved social and economic conditions had aroused a keen sense of racial pride and consciousness of their past greatness. A very considerable portion of the community, it seems, looked with disapproval upon the introduction of the undesirable element of alien races into their small numbers. This strong feeling was aggravated the more through the fact that such converts who sought admission came always from the lowest classes Members of the upper classes of the non-Zoroastrian communities were not heard knocking at the door of the Mazdayasnian fire-temples seeking admission. The community was not disposed to any kind of active religious propaganda. The cases of conversion were consequently confined either to the slaves brought up in Parsi families or to the children born to Parsi fathers of their non-Zoroastrian mistresses. Proselytizing came to be associated with the low type of foreign element, and fell into disrepute.

A beginning of opposition to the idea of religious propaganda was thus made when the entire question of proselytizing came to be looked upon by the community with disfavour. No serious attempt has since been made by the Parsis of India to organize a proselytizing movement with the sole object of propagating their faith. But the desire on the part of some Zoroastrians to include in the faith children born to them by illegitimate intercourse with non-Zoroastrian mistresses, or by others seeking a matrimonial alliance with alien women and investing the children born of such unions with the sacred shirt and girdle, has prompted them to open the question from time to time to the present day. So bitter have been the controversies thus arising that they have stopped just short of physical violence.