History of Zoroastrianism/Chapter 59

Crusade against the non-Zoroastrian practices engrafted upon Zoroastrianism. The compromises and concessions made on the part of the early Parsi settlers in India were needed to conciliate the prejudices of the Hindu rulers. The Parsis were a handful of people living in the midst of the teeming millions of India, and even the twelve centuries of their residence in this country have failed to merge them in the ocean of Indian humanity. This fact is largely due to their intensely communal spirit, fostered by the dread of being assimilated into greater communities, and of thus losing their individuality. But the average Parsi did not fail to borrow many superstitious customs and habits from the Hindus as well as from the Mohammedans during the later period. The Hindu augur and the Moslem diviner became important factors in the family life of the Parsis. These seers were called in to cast the horoscope of the new-born Zoroastrian child; they foretold the future, administered amulets to heal every sickness and disease in the family, prescribed charms to ward off the evil eye, exorcised demoniacal influences from persons possessed by the powers of darkness, and, in many ways, proved indispensable auxiliaries to a Parsi from birth to death. The mediation of a Brahman or of a Mullah was often rated higher than that of a Mobad, and a Sanskrit mantra or an Arabic kalma was regarded more efficacious for the purchase of heavenly boons than an Avestan mānthra. The Zoroastrian priest ruled in the fire-temple, but the non-Zoroastrian priest had a powerful sway over the hearts of the Parsi populace. With rich offerings did the faithful repair to the tombs of Moslem saints and to Hindu shrines. They laid their faith upon all altars and turned to strange gods in their extremities. The grandeur of the Mazdayasnian teachings had faded, and Zoroaster had partly ceased to be a living force in the spiritual life of the community.

​Many alien customs had thus worked their way into Zoroastrianism. These were hard facts for the orthodox to admit but they were facts all the same. With the vigour of youth and with unquenchable zeal the reformers of that day undertook to liberate the community from the thraldom of superimposed non-Zoroastrian customs, and to wean it from superstitions.

The reformers protested against reciting their prayers parrot-wise in an unintelligible language. The Avesta language had long since fallen into disuse. It was not a living language. Yet the belief in its being of celestial origin, the tongue in which Ormazd addressed his heavenly court, and even that in which Ahriman harangued his ribald crew, had preserved it as the only true vehicle for conveying prayers. The reformers now argued that it was meaningless to mumble an unintelligible gibberish which neither the priest himself nor the layman understood. Ejaculations and genuflexions were of no avail, when they recited their prayers in a dead language. No amount of such formulas would affect the character of the devotees and ennoble their thoughts. A prayer that had no subjective value was no prayer. It failed to awaken any ethical fervour, for a truly devout prayer should spur the spirit within to a higher life. This was not possible so long as the priest perfunctorily droned prayers, not a word of which was understood.

The orthodox vehemently retorted that the Avestan language was divine, and as such it possessed inherent magical efficacy. Miraculously composed as these Avestan prayers were, they had indescribable objective value, it was claimed, quite independent of the motive of one who recited them. The mere utterance of the sacred texts, without knowing in the least what they meant, would produce marvellous effect. The ultra-orthodox viewed the situation with pious dread and entertained serious apprehension that, if once the community permitted the use of Gujarati or English compositions for daily prayers, nothing short of a revolutionary change would come, and with the lapse of time the Avestan texts would be supplanted by prayer-books composed in the modern vernaculars. The reformers pointed out that there already existed some monājāt prayers composed in Persian by some of the learned Dasturs even in their own lifetime, which the orthodox were using without any scruple at the end of their daily Avestan prayers.

​A fierce controversy raged around this question, with the result that the orthodox went on praying in their own way, and the reformers, neither having faith in the recital of their prayers in an unintelligible language nor having a proper substitute to satisfy their demand, went without prayers of any kind. And the situation remains, in large measure, unchanged up to this very day.

The Avesta text metamorphosed into an ungrammatical jargon. The reformers further said that the Avestan texts were recited with the most incorrect pronunciations. In vindication of their statement they quoted passages from the original texts and put by their side the corrupt formulas in vogue in the community. An example of this kind may not be out of place here, and we shall insert the text of Ahunavar, the most important Zoroastrian formula, first in its correct form and then in the corrupt form which obtains among a considerable portion of the community up to this hour. The original formula is as follows:

yathā ahu vairyo athā ratush ashāt chit hachā vangheush dazdā manangho shyaothananām angheush Mazdāi khshathremchā ahurāi ā yim dregubyo dadat vāstārem.

The corrupt form of the same:

athāu veryo thāre tose sāde chide chavanghoise dezdā manengho sotthenanām anghyos Mazdāe khosetharamchāe orāe āiyem daregobyo daredar vāstārem.

This, however, did not trouble the orthodox, for they complacently remarked that as long as they had implicit faith in what they recited, and recited it whole-heartedly, it mattered very little whether they used correct pronunciation or not. Ormazd looked to their hearts, and not to their sense of grammar and orthography. So long as their motives were good, their prayers were acceptable to the Heavenly Father.

The redeeming feature of this entire controversy has been a growing tendency in the community to avail itself of the help of the philologist, who has brought nearer home to them the correct and carefully edited version of their sacred scriptures, and they have consequently begun to recite their daily prayers from books that have based their texts on the standard and authorized version of the liturgy.

​Too much ritualism, protested the reformer. The mechanical handling of the ritual, which was as much unintelligible in its real purport to the priest who performed it as it was to the layman who ordered it, failed to satisfy the new school. The orthodox maintained that although the priestly authorities themselves had lost the key of the mysteries of the ceremonies and were unable to understand their meaning, nevertheless untold good accrued to those who devoutly ordered such ceremonies for their own merit. They entertained a pious hope that the lost key would some day be recovered, and the hidden secrets brought to the light of the day.

The reformers urged that a vast structure of formalism and ritual had replaced the edifice of the simple faith, and religion had simply turned into ritualism. They dwelt especially on the subjective value of the ritual, and argued that however elaborate and expensive the ceremony might be, it was of no value if it failed to symbolize a moral idea for the faithful who ordered it. Ceremonial observances, they complained, were given greater importance than moral observance. Righteousness was identified with rituals. They were only a clothing of religion, but the ethical substance of religion was of greater importance than the clothing itself. Religion, they urged, does not consist in laying up merit by ceremonials. The orthodox retorted that the ritual as such had an intrinsic value and inherent merit, and the more such rites were performed, the greater was the merit assured to the faithful. The new school said that these ceremonials may perhaps serve as a means of conveying ethical ideas to a backward people, but the Parsis were not a backward people. Hence they did not need them. Righteousness did not depend upon such ceremonial observances, but upon the purity of man's inner life. Besides, the ceremonials became an economic drain on the slender resources of the credulous poor, who incurred heavy debts for their performance, which was displeasing in the sight of Ormazd. The orthodox declared these statements an Ahrimanian onslaught upon the Mazdayasnian rites.

The progressives denounced the intercessory prayers for the dead. The philological researches had for the first time brought to the notice of the Parsis the fact of the sharp distinction between man's soul and his Farohar. From what has been stated in the earlier pages, it can be clearly seen how this essen​tial difference was lost sight of, as early as during the later Pahlavi period. The soul and the Farohar were taken to be one and the same by the Zoroastrians before the philologist pointed out the error. Priest and layman, the learned and the illiterate alike, believed implicitly that the souls of the dead profited by the ceremonials performed in their honour by their relatives in this world. The Avestan and Pahlavi passages, which speak of the coming of the Farohars to earth at the period of the Fravardigan festival, seeking invocation and sacrifice, were understood by the entire community as indubitably referring to the coming of the souls of the dead.^[1]

According to the general conviction, the supplications offered by the living procured either a remission of the sins committed by the deceased in this world, or else a specific merit for the good deeds he had done. It was this strong faith in the efficacy of the ceremonials to help the struggling soul in either making its way out of hell, or in ascending upwards through the graded heavens in the next world, that inspired the loving and dutiful survivors to order elaborate rituals for the spiritual welfare of the departed. Propitiatory offerings were made, and penitential prayers were recited to secure a better lot for the souls of the dead, and the performance of these periodical rites was most zealously observed. Rich viands were consecrated in the name of the deceased. Whatever kind of food or drink the departed ones had best liked in life were specially prepared. On the last day of the festival, moreover, when the souls were believed to leave this world and return to that beyond, food and drink were offered them to assuage the hunger and thirst on their return journey, while money in copper and silver was dedicated to them to meet their travelling expenses.

The recital of the Patit, or expiatory prayer, forms an important part of the ceremonies performed in honour of the dead. The relatives and friends of the deceased still engage a priest to recite it, and do the same themselves for the expiation and welfare of the soul when it is embarking on its journey to the next world after death. The devout generally keep up this observance daily for at least a month, or throughout the first year, or in many cases for a still longer period. ​The reformers took up the question and said that Zoroastrianism enjoined that a man went to the abode of weal or woe according to his deserts, and that no amount of ceremonials performed by the living could either mitigate his sufferings or improve his condition in the spiritual world. His sins could not be atoned for by elaborate rituals performed in his name, nor would he be one whit the happier for them. It is true, they further said, that according to the scriptures, the benefit of the ceremonials performed for the dead accrues to the soul during the first three nights after death, while it still hovers over the body, but from the period of the dawn of the fourth day, when justice is administered to the soul, and it is awarded its special place, the rituals do not affect its position. Any ceremonies performed after this day, that is, on the monthly and yearly anniversaries or on any other occasions, are mainly for the Farohar of the dead man, and not for his soul. In fact, it was claimed, these rites are more for the interest of the living than for the imagined interest of the dead. Zoroastrianism, they said, never stood for any kind of vicarious salvation, for the question of salvation or damnation rested on the individual's own deeds. Neither would the expiatory prayers recited by the living wash out the sins of the dead, nor would the propitiatory sacrifices offered by them induce the heavenly judges to revoke their decision. As the man sows, so shall he reap, is the immortal truth taught by Zoroaster. Merit, they contended, cannot be purchased at a price, and sin cannot be expiated by proxy. It was destroying the true spirit of the prophet's great religion to entertain such degrading ideas of vicarious expiation which had been fastened on Zoroastrianism.

These scathing criticisms seriously wounded the religious susceptibilities of the orthodox, who became unsparing in the vehement denunciation of the reformers, charging them as reactionaries with carrying the religious barque to ruin. They branded the attempts of the reformers as blasphemous and as an irreverent prying into the divine work of Ormazd. Bitter words were exchanged between the rival parties, and abuses and invectives, ridicule and obloquy, became rampant over these and several other controversial questions.

The good sense of the disputants saved the community from being split into sects. The reformers were termed the ​Parsi Protestants and were charged with thinking in terms of Christianity. They were said to be fired by the sole ambition of being original, and of setting at naught the achievements of their elders for the last three thousand years. The reformers replied that they were simply looking to antiquity for models for their conduct and were profiting solely by the vast experience of the past. But at the same time, they rejoined, the orthodox should remember that the ancients had tackled the religious and ceremonial questions that arose in their own days according to light that had prevailed in the past. Those of that day had not done the thinking for all times to come, with injunctions to the future generations to act in strict accordance with them. They alone had not the monopoly to think, and had not given the final mandate to acquiesce in all that they had believed. Besides, a return to the past could not bring unalloyed happiness to the Parsis in the present times. The community, it was urged, cannot afford to transplant itself back to the age of the Vendidad. There was no use sticking to outworn forms and seeking to give them a new life. It was futile to attempt to support delusions, and the orthodox, they said, should not throw all possible shackles in the way of progress by hampering and paralyzing the well-meant efforts of the new school.

Such, in brief form, is the story of the opening of the conflict between conservative and free thought among the Parsis in India, which rent the community into two sections. The rival parties, however, did not make any formal division between themselves. The reformers did not venture to contemplate so complete a break with the orthodox as would culminate in the establishment of a reformed Church. The orthodox could not excommunicate the reformers even if they would. The orthodox had to content themselves with condemning the reformers, and the reformers by satrizing the orthodox. Even to-day the main disputes over some of these vital problems remain much the same as they were nine decades ago, and the battle goes on, still to be won.