INTRODUCTION

The Parsis of India are a community which can often only be described in terms of superlatives. They belong to one of the world’s oldest religious traditions, and they are now India’s smallest community, yet they are among those who have exercised the greatest influence on the Subcontinent, having been foremost in so many areas all out of proportion to their demographic size. Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Parsis, takes its name from the ancient Iranian prophet Zoroaster, who is variously dated to between 1400 and 1200 ; it was the state religion of three Iranian empires – Achaemenian, Parthian and Sasanian – from the sixth century  to the seventh century .1 In the face of Islamic persecution after the Arab conquest of Iran in the seventh century, and perhaps being aware of trading opportunities on the coast of north-west India, Zoroastrians migrated there, probably as early as the eighth century (see Williams and Nanji, chapters 2 and 3 in this volume). They lived by an agrarian, artisan and small-scale mercantile existence, in relative peace and security, in the Indian Subcontinent until the arrival of the European trading powers in the seventeenth century. First came the Portuguese, then the Dutch, and finally the British: with this new wave, the Parsis moved from their traditional roles to participate increasingly in international trade and shipping.2 When the English took possession of Bombay (1662), the Parsis migrated in increasing numbers to this new base free of Moghul rule and Maratha raids (although for several decades Bombay remained exposed to the danger of invasion). The English sought to attract migrants and to encourage minorities, and accordingly they offered freedom of religion and equal justice before the law: various minorities, such as the Jains and Parsis, chose to live under this new regime. Bombay was, therefore, from its early days, a cosmopolitan island3 on which Parsis flourished, first as middlemen in trade, then as independent traders. They also changed from a rural environment (see Stewart in this volume) to what became an urban setting.