ABSTRACT
The Pārsīs are descendants of the ancient Persians who were expelled from Persia by the Muhammadan conquerors, and who first settled at Sūrat between eleven and twelve hundred years ago. According to the last census they do not number more than 70,000 souls, of whom about 50,000 are found in the city of Bombay, the remaining 20,000 in different parts of India, but chiefly in Gujarāt and the Bombay Presidency. Though a mere drop in the ocean of 241 million inhabitants, they form a most important and influential body of men, emulating Europeans in energy and enterprize, rivalling them in opulence, and imitating them in many of their habits. Their vernacular language is Gujarātī, but nearly every adult speaks English with fluency, and English is now taught in all their schools. Their Benevolent Institution for the education of at least 1,000 boys and girls is in a noble building, and is a model of good management. Their religion, as delivered in its original purity by their prophet Zoroaster, and as propounded in the Zand-Avastā, is monotheistic, or, perhaps, rather pantheistic, in spite of its philosophical dualism, and in spite of the apparent worship of fire and the elements, regarded as visible representations of the Deity. Its morality is summed up in three precepts of two words each—‘good thoughts,’ ‘good words,’ ‘good deeds;’ of which the Pārsī is constantly reminded by the triple coil of his white cotton girdle. In its origin the Pārsī system is closely allied to that of the Hindū Āryans—as represented in the Veda—and has much in common with the more recent Brāhmanism. Neither religion can make proselytes.
