ZOROASTRIANISM.
Zoroaster an historical person—The Parsees—Iranian branch
of Aryan family—Zoroaster a religious reformer—Scene at
Balkh—Conversion of Gushtasp—Doctrines of the ‘excellent
religion’—Monotheism—Polarity—Dr. Haug’s description—Ormuzd and
Ahriman—Anquetil du Perron—Approximation to modern thought—Absence
of miracles—Code of morals—Its comprehensiveness—And
liberality—Special rites—Fire-worship—Disposal of dead—Practical
results—The Parsees of Bombay—Their probity, enterprise,
respect for women—Zeal for education—Philanthropy and public
spirit—Statistics—Death and birth rates.
Zoroastrianism is commonly supposed to derive its name from its founder
Zoroaster, a Bactrian sage or prophet, who lived in the reign of King
Gushtasp the First. Zoroaster’s name has come down to us from antiquity
in much the same relation to this form of religion as that of Moses
to Judaism, or of Sakya-Mouni to Buddhism. As in those cases, certain
learned commentators have endeavoured to show that the alleged founder
was purely mythical and had no real historical existence, basing their
argument mainly on the fact that a number of supernatural attributes,
and embodiments of metaphysical and theological ideas, became attached
to the name, just as a whole cycle of solar myths became associated
with the name of Hercules. But this seems to be carrying scepticism too
far. Experience shows that religions have generally originated in the
crystallisation of ideas floating in solution at certain periods of the
evolution of societies, about the nucleus of some powerful personality.
Nearly all the great religions of the world, such as Buddhism,
Confucianism, Christianity, and Mahometanism, clearly had historical
founders, and it would be hypercritical to deny that such a man as Jesus
of Nazareth really lived because many of his sayings and doings may be
traced to applications, more or less erroneous, of ancient prophecies,
or because his human nature became transfigured into the Logos and other
metaphysical conceptions of the Alexandrian philosophy.
In the case of Zoroaster, the argument for his historical existence
seems even stronger, for his name is connected with historical reigns
and places, and his genuine early history contains nothing supernatural
or improbable. He is represented as simply a deep thinker and powerful
preacher, like Luther, who gave new form and expression to the vague
religious and philosophical ideas of his age and nation, reformed
its superstitions and abuses, and converted the leading minds of his
day, including the monarch, by the earnestness and eloquence of his
discourses. At any rate, for my purpose I shall assume his personality,
for my object is not to write a critical essay on the origin and
development of the Zoroastrian religion, but to show that in its
fundamental ideas and essential spirit it approximates wonderfully to
those of the most advanced modern thought, and gives the outline of a
creed which goes further than any other to meet the practical wants
of the present day, and to reconcile the conflict between faith and
science. This will be most clearly and vividly shown by assuming the
commonly accepted historical existence of Zoroaster to be true, and
by confining myself to the broad, leading principles of his religion,
without dwelling on its varying phases, or on the mythical legends and
ritualistic observances which, as in the case of all other old religions,
have crystallised about the primitive idea and the primitive founder.
Zara-thustra, or, as he is commonly called, Zoroaster, and the religion
which goes by his name, are known to us mainly from the sacred books
which have been preserved by the modern Parsees. The Parsees, a small
remnant of the Persians who under Cyrus founded one of the mightiest
empires of the ancient world, flying from their native country to escape
from persecution after the Mahometan conquest, formed a colony in India,
and are now settled at Bombay. They form a small but highly intelligent
community, who have preserved their ancient religion, and, fortunately,
some considerable fragments of their sacred scriptures. The oldest of
these are written in the Gata dialect of the Avesta or Zend language,
which is contemporary with Sanskrit, and bears much the same relation to
it as Latin does to Greek. The primitive Aryan family at some very remote
period became divided into two branches, and radiated from their Central
Asian home in two directions. The Hindoo branch migrated to the south
into the Punjaub and Hindostan; the Iranian westwards, into Bactria and
Persia; while other successive waves of Aryan migration in prehistoric
times rolled still further westwards over Europe, obliterating all but a
few traces of the aboriginal population.
The period of this separation of the Iranian and Hindoo races must be
very remote, for the Rig-Veda is probably at least 4,000 years old, and
the divergence between its form of Sanskrit and the Gata dialect of the
Zend is already as great as that between two kindred European languages
such as Greek and Latin. The divergence of religious ideas is also
evidently of very early date. In the Hindoo, and all other races of the
primitive Aryan stock, the word used for gods and good spirits is taken
from the root ‘div,’ to shine. Thus, Daeva in Sanskrit, Zeus and Theos in
Greek, Deus in Latin, Tius in German, Diews in Lutheranism, Dia in Irish,
Dew in Kymric, all mean the bright or shining one represented by the
vault of heaven. But in Iranian the word has an opposite sense, and the
‘deevs’ correspond to our ‘devils.’
The primitive Aryan religions were evidently all derived from a
contemplation of the powers and phenomena of nature. The sky, with its
flood of light and vault of ethereal blue, was considered to be the
highest manifestation of a Supreme Power; while the sun and moon, the
stars and planets, the winds and clouds, the earth and waters, were
personified, either as symbols of the Deity or as subordinate gods.
The original simple faith was thus apt to degenerate into a system of
polytheism, and, as the gods came to be represented by visible forms,
into idolatry.
Zoroaster appears to us, like Mahomet at a later age and among a ruder
people, as a prophet or reformer who abolished these abuses and restored
the ancient faith in a loftier and more intellectual form, adapted to the
use of an advanced and civilised society. The records of his life and
teaching have fortunately been preserved in so authentic a form, that
distant as he is from us we can form a singularly accurate idea of who he
was and what he taught.
Some 3,200 years ago a sight might have been seen in the ancient city of
Balkh—the famous capital of Bactria, the ‘Mother of Cities’—very like
that witnessed some fourteen centuries later at our own Canterbury.
The king and his chief nobles and courtiers were assembled to hear the
discourse of a preacher who proposed to teach them a better religion.
Gushtasp listened to Zoroaster, as Ethelbert listened to Augustine, and
in each case reason and eloquence carried conviction, and the nation
became converts to the new doctrine.
This conversion was effected without miracles, for it is expressly stated
in the celebrated speech of the prophet, preserved in the 30th chapter of
the Yasna, that he relied solely on persuasion and argument. Ferdousi,
the Persian Homer, thus describes the first interview between Zoroaster
and Gushtasp: ‘Learn,’ he said, ‘the rites and doctrines of the religion
of excellence. For without religion there cannot be any worth in a king.
When the mighty monarch heard him speak of the excellent religion, he
accepted from him the excellent rites and doctrines.’
The doctrines of this ‘excellent religion’ are extremely simple. The
leading idea is that of monotheism, but the one God has far fewer
anthropomorphic attributes, and is relegated much farther back into the
vague and infinite, than the god of any other monotheistic religion.
Ahura-Mazda, of which the more familiar appellation Ormuzd is an
abbreviation, means the ‘All-knowing Lord;’ he is said sometimes to
dwell in the infinite luminous space, and sometimes to be identical with
it. He is, in fact, not unlike the inscrutable First Cause, whom we may
regard with awe and reverence, with love and hope, but whom we cannot
pretend to define or to understand. But the radical difference between
Zoroastrianism and other religions is that it does not conceive of this
one God as an omnipotent Creator, who might make the universe as he
chose, and therefore was directly responsible for all the evil in it; but
as a Being acting by certain fixed laws, one of which was, for reasons
totally inscrutable to us, that existence implied polarity, and therefore
that there could be no good without corresponding evil.
Dr. Haug, who is the greatest authority on all questions connected with
the Zend scriptures, says: ‘Having arrived at the grand idea of the unity
and indivisibility of the Supreme Being, Zoroaster undertook to solve
the great problem which has engaged the attention of so many wise men
of antiquity and even in modern times, viz. how are the imperfections
discernible in the world, the various kind of evils, wickedness, and
baseness, compatible with the goodness, holiness, and justness of God?
This great thinker of remote antiquity solved this difficult question
philosophically, by the supposition of two primæval causes, which, though
different, were united, and produced the world of material things as
well as that of spirit. These two primæval principles are the two moving
causes in the universe, united from the beginning, and therefore called
twins. They are present everywhere—in the Ahura Mazda, or Supreme Deity,
as well as in man.’
They are called in the Vendidad Spento Mainyush, or the ‘beneficent
spirit,’ and Angro Mainyush, or the ‘hurtful spirit.’ The latter is
generally known as Ahriman, the Prince of Darkness; and the former as
Ormuzd, is identified with Ahura Mazda, the good God, though, strictly
speaking, Ahura Mazda is the great unknown First Cause, who comprehends
within himself both principles as a necessary law of existence, and in
whom believers may hope that evil and good will ultimately be reconciled.
Anquetil du Perron, the first translator of the Zendavesta, in his
‘Critical View of the Theological and Ceremonial System of Zar-thurst,’
thus sums up the Parsee creed: ‘The first point in the theological
system of Zoroaster is to recognise and adore the Master of all that is
good, the Principle of all righteousness, Ormuzd, according to the form
of worship prescribed by him, and with purity of thought, of word, and
of action, a purity which is marked and preserved by purity of body.
Next, to have a respect, accompanied by gratitude, for the intelligence
to which Ormuzd has committed the care of nature (i.e. to the laws of
nature), to take in our actions their attributes for models, to copy
in our conduct the harmony which reigns in the different parts of the
universe, and generally to honour Ormuzd in all that he has produced.
The second part of their religion consists in detesting the author of
all evil, moral and physical, Ahriman—his productions, and his works;
and to contribute, as far as in us lies, to exalt the glory of Ormuzd by
enfeebling the tyranny which the Evil Principle exercises over the world.’
It is evident that this simple and sublime religion is one to which,
by whatever name we may call it, the best modern thought is fast
approximating. Men of science like Huxley, philosophers like Herbert
Spencer, poets like Tennyson, might all subscribe to it; and even
enlightened Christian divines, like Dr. Temple, are not very far from
it when they admit the idea of a Creator behind the atoms and energies,
whose original impress, given in the form of laws of nature, was so
perfect as to require no secondary interference. Admit that Christ is the
best personification of the Spenta Mainyush, or good principle in the
inscrutable Divine polarity of existence, and a man may be at the same
time a Christian and a Zoroastrian.
The religion of Zoroaster has, however, this great advantage in the
existing conditions of modern thought, that it is not dragged down by
such a dead weight of traditional dogmas and miracles as still hangs upon
the skirts of Christianity. Its dogmas are comprised in the statement
that there is one supreme, unknown, First Cause, who manifests himself in
the universe under fixed laws which involve the principle of polarity.
This is hardly so much a dogma as a statement of fact, or of the ultimate
and absolute truth at which it is possible for human faculty to arrive.
No progress of science or philosophy conflicts with it, but rather they
confirm it, by showing more and more clearly with every discovery that
this is in very fact and deed the literal truth. Religion, or the feeling
of reverence and love for the Great Unknown which lies beyond the sphere
of human sense and reason, shines more brightly through this pure medium
than through the fogs of misty metaphysics; and we can worship God in
spirit and in truth without puzzling our brains as to the precise nature
of the Logos, or exercising them on the insoluble problem how one can be
equal to three, and at the same time three equal to one.
As regards miracles, which are another millstone about the neck of
Catholic Christianity, the religion of Zoroaster is entirely free from
them. There are, it is true, a few miraculous myths about him in some
of the later writings in the Pehlvi language, as of his conception
by his mother drinking a cup of the sacred Homa, but these are of no
authority and form no part of the religion. On the contrary, the original
scriptures which profess to record his exact words and precepts disclaim
all pretension to divine nature or miraculous power, and base the
claims of the ‘excellent religion’ purely on reason. This is an immense
advantage in the ‘struggle for life,’ when every day is making it more
impossible for educated men to believe that real miracles ever actually
occurred, and when the evidence on which they were accepted is crumbling
to pieces under the light of critical enquiry. The Parsee has no reason
to tremble for his faith if a Galileo invents the telescope or a Newton
discovers the law of gravity. He has no occasion to argue for Noah’s
deluge, or for the order of Creation described in Genesis. Nay even, he
may remain undisturbed by that latest and most fatal discovery that man
has existed on the earth for untold ages, and, instead of falling from a
high estate, has risen continuously by slow and painful progress from the
rudest origins. How many orthodox Christians can say the same, or deny
that their faith in their sacred books and venerable traditions has been
rudely shaken?
The code of morality enjoined by the Zoroastrian religion is as pure as
its theory is perfect. Dr. Haug enumerates the following sins denounced
by its code, and considered as such by the present Parsees: Murder,
infanticide, poisoning, adultery on the part of men as well as women,
sorcery, sodomy, cheating in weight and measure, breach of promise
whether made to a Zoroastrian or non-Zoroastrian, telling lies and
deceiving, false covenants, slander and calumny, perjury, dishonest
appropriation of wealth, taking bribes, keeping back the wages of
labourers, misappropriation of religious property, removal of a boundary
stone, turning people out of their property, maladministration and
defrauding, apostasy, heresy, rebellion. These are positive injunctions.
The following are condemnable from a religious point of view: Abandoning
the husband; not acknowledging one’s children on the part of the father;
cruelty towards subjects on the part of a ruler; avarice, laziness,
illiberality and egotism, envy. In addition there are a number of special
precepts adapted to the peculiar rites of the Zoroastrian religion
which aim principally at the enforcement of sanitary rules, kindness to
animals, hospitality to strangers and travellers, respect to superiors,
and help to the poor and needy.
It is evident that this is the most complete and comprehensive code of
morals to be found in any system of religion. It comprises all that
is best in the codes of Buddhism, Judaism, and Christianity, with a
much more ample definition of many vices and virtues which, even in
the Christian religion, are left to be drawn as inferences rather than
inculcated as precepts. Thus, laziness, cheating, selfishness, and envy
are distinctly defined as crimes, and their opposites as virtues, and
not merely left to be inferred from the general maxims of ‘loving your
neighbour as yourself,’ and ‘doing unto others as you would be done by.’
The comprehensiveness and liberal spirit of the code is also remarkable,
for we are repeatedly told that these rules of morality apply to
non-Zoroastrians as well as to Zoroastrians. The application of religious
precepts to practical life is another distinguishing feature. Thus
kindness to animals is specially enjoined, and it is considered a sin to
ill-treat animals of the good creation, such as cattle, sheep, horses,
or dogs, by starving, beating, or unnecessarily killing them. With true
practical wisdom, however, the ‘falsehood of extremes’ is avoided, and
this precept is not, as in the case of Brahminism and Buddhism, carried
so far as to prohibit altogether the taking of animal life, which is
expressly sanctioned when necessary. This sober practical wisdom, or what
Matthew Arnold calls ‘sweet reasonableness,’ is a very characteristic
feature of Zoroaster’s religion, and very remarkable as having been
taught at so early a period in the history of civilisation.
Another precept, which might well have been made by an English board of
health in the nineteenth century, is not to pollute water by throwing
impure matter into it.
The only special Parsee rites which would be unsuited for modern European
society, are the worship of the sacred fire and the disposal of the
dead. It is true that the former is distinctly understood to be merely
a symbol of the Deity, and used exactly as water is in baptism, or as
the ascending flame of candles and smoke from swinging incense are in
the Catholic ritual, to bring more vividly before the minds of the
worshippers the idea of the spirit soaring upwards towards heaven. Still,
in modern society fire is too well understood as merely a particular form
of chemical combination, and is too familiar as the strong slave and
household drudge of man, to acquire a leading place in a religious ritual
where it has not been hallowed by the usage of a long line of ancestors
and the traditions of a venerable antiquity. All that can be said is,
that if religious rites and ceremonies are to be maintained in an age
when science has become the prevailing mode of thought, appropriate
symbolism, especially that of music, must more and more take the place of
appeals to the intellect on metaphysical questions, and of repetitions of
traditional formulæ which have lost all living significance.
Another Parsee rite, which is even less adapted for general usage, is
that of disposing of the dead on towers of silence, where the body
moulders away or is devoured by birds of prey. It originates in a
poetical motive of not defiling the pure elements, fire, earth, or
water, by corruption; but it is obviously unsuited for the conditions of
civilisation and climate which prevail in crowded cities under a humid
sky.
There is little prospect therefore of any general conversion to the sect
of Zoroastrians; but what seems probable is the gradual transformation of
existing modes both of religious and secular thought into something which
is, in principle, very closely akin to the ‘excellent religion’ taught by
the Bactrian prophet.
The miraculous theory of the universe being virtually dead, the only
theory that can reconcile facts with feelings, and the ineradicable
emotions and aspirations of the human mind with the incontrovertible
conclusions of science, is that of a remote and more or less unknown
and incomprehensible First Cause, which has given the original atoms
and energies so perfect an impress from the first, that all phenomena
are evolved from them by fixed laws, one of the principal of such laws
being that of polarity, which develops the ever-increasing complexities
and contrasts of the inorganic and organic worlds, of moralities,
philosophies, religions, and human societies. True religion consists in
a recognition of this truth, a feeling of reverence in presence of the
unknown, and, above all, a feeling of love and admiration for the good
principle in whatever form it is manifested, in the beauties of nature
and of art, in moral and physical purity and perfection, and all else
that falls within the domain of the Prince of Light, in whose service,
whether we conceive of him as an abstract principle, or accept some
personification of him as a living figure, we enlist as loyal soldiers,
doing our best to fight in his ranks against the powers of evil.
The application of the all-pervading principle of polarity is exemplified
in the realm of art. The glorious Greek drama turned mainly on the
conflict between resistless fate and heroic free-will, and is typified
in its highest form by Æschylus, when he depicts Prometheus chained to
the rock hurling defiance at the tyrant of heaven. Our own Milton, in
like manner, gives us the spectacle of the fallen archangel opposing
his indomitable will and fertile resources to the extremity of adverse
circumstance and to Almighty power.
The greatest of modern dramas, Goethe’s ‘Faust,’ turns so entirely on
the opposition between the human soul striving after the infinite, and
the spirit _der verneint_, who combats ideal aspirations with a cynical
sneer, that it might well be called a Zoroastrian drama. It is a picture
of the conflict between the two opposite principles of good and evil, of
affirmation and negation, of the beautiful and the ugly, personified in
Faust and Mephistopheles, and it is painted on a background of the great
mysterious unknown. ‘Wer darf ihn nennen?’
Who dares to name Him,
Who to say of Him, ‘I believe’?
Who is there ever with a heart to dare
To utter, ‘I believe Him not’?
So in poetry, Tennyson, the poet of modern thought, touches the deepest
chords when he asks—
Are God and Nature, then, at strife?
and paints in the sharpest contrast on the background of the unknown, the
conflict between the faith that
God is love indeed,
And love creation’s final law,
and the harsh realities of nature, which
Red in tooth and claw
With ravine shrieks against the creed;
or again in his later work, ‘The Ancient Sage,’ he says—
Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son!
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven.
In like manner in the works of art which embrace a wider range, and hold
up the mirror to human nature, as in Shakespeare’s plays, and the novels
of Walter Scott and other great authors, the interest arises mainly from
the polarity of the various characters. We care little for the goody-good
heroes or vulgar villains, but we recognise a touch of that nature which
makes all the world akin in a Macbeth drawn by metaphysical suggestion
to wade through a sea of blood; in Othello’s noble nature caught like a
lion in the toils by the net of circumstances woven by a wily hunter; in
Falstaff, a rogue, a liar, and a glutton, yet made almost likeable by his
ready wit, imperturbable good-humour, and fertile resources. Shakespeare
is, in fact, the greatest of artists, because he is the most multipolar.
He has poles of sympathy in him which, as the poles of carbon attract
so many elements and form so many combinations, enable him to take into
his own nature, assimilate, and reproduce every varied shade of character
from a Miranda to a Caliban, from an Imogen to a Lady Macbeth, from a
Falstaff to an Othello. Sir Walter Scott and all our great novelists
have the same faculty, though in a less degree, and are great in exact
proportion as they have many poles in their nature, and as those are
poles of powerful polarity. The characters and incidents which affect
us strongly and dwell in the memory are those in which the clash and
conflict of opposites are most vividly represented. We feel infinite pity
for a Maggie Tulliver dashing her young life, like a prisoned wild bird,
against the bars of trivial and prosaic environment which hem her in; or
for a Colonel Newcome opposing the patience of a gentle nature to the
buffets of such a fate as meets us in the everyday world of modern life,
the failure of his bank and the naggings of the Old Campaigner. On a
higher level of art we sympathise with a Lancelot and a Guinevere because
they are types of what we may meet in many a London drawing-room, noble
natures drawn by some fatal fairy fascination into ignoble acts, but
still retaining something of their original nobility, and while
Their honour rooted in dishonour stands,
appearing to ordinary mortals little less than ‘archangels ruined.’ Or
even if we descend to the lowest level of the penny dreadful or suburban
drama, we find that the polarity between vice and virtue, however
coarsely delineated, is that which mostly fascinates the uncultured mind.
The affinity between Zoroastrianism and art is easily explained when
we consider that in one respect it has a manifest advantage over most
Christian forms of religion. Christianity in its early origins received
a taint of Oriental asceticism which it never shook off, and which in
the declining centuries of the Roman empire, and in the barbarism and
superstition of the Middle Ages, developed into what may be almost called
a devil-worship of the ugly and repulsive. The antithesis between the
flesh and the spirit was carried to such an extreme and false extent,
that everything that was pleasant and beautiful came to be regarded as
sinful, and the odour of sanctity was an odour which the passer-by would
do well to keep on the windward side of. This leaven of asceticism is
the rock upon which Puritanism, monasticism, and many of the highest
forms of Christian life have invariably split. It is contrary to human
nature, and directly opposed to the spirit of the life and doctrines of
the Founder of the religion. Jesus, who was ‘a Jew living among Jews
and speaking to Jews,’ adopted the true Jewish point of view of making
religion amiable and attractive, and denouncing, as all the best Jewish
doctors of the Talmud did, the pharisaical strictness which insisted on
ritualistic observances and arbitrary restrictions. In no passages of
his life does the ‘sweet reasonableness’ of his character appear more
conspicuous than where we find him strolling through the fields with his
disciples and plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath, and replying to the
formalists who were scandalised, ‘The Sabbath was made for man, not man
for the Sabbath.’ The ascetic bias subsequently introduced may have been
a necessary element in counteracting the corruption of Rome; but the
pendulum in its reaction swung much too far, and when organised in the
celibacy of the clergy and monastic institutions asceticism became the
source of great evils. Even at a late period we can see in the reaction
of the reign of Charles II. how antagonistic the puritanical creed,
even of men like Cromwell and Milton, proved to the healthy natural
instinct of the great mass of the English nation. And at the present day
it remains one of the main causes of the indifference or hostility to
religion which is so widely spreading among the mass of the population.
Children are brought up to consider Sunday as a day of penance, and
church-going as a disagreeable necessity; while grown-up men, especially
those of the working classes, resent being told that a walk in the
country, a cricket-match, or a visit to a library or museum on their only
holiday, is sinful.
In view of the approximation between the Zoroastrian religion and
the forms of modern thought it is interesting to note how the former
works among its adherents in actual practice. For, after all, the
practical side of a religion is more important than its speculative
or philosophical theories. Thus, for instance, the Quakers have a
faith which is about the most reasonable of any of the numerous sects
of Christianity and nearest to the spirit of its Founder, and yet
Quakerism remains a narrow sect which is far from being victorious in the
‘struggle for life,’ Mahometanism, again, while dying out among civilised
nations, shows itself superior to Christianity in the work of raising
the barbarous, fetish-worshipping negroes of Africa to a higher level.
And Mormonism, based on the most obvious imposture and absurdity, is
the only new religion which, in recent times, has taken root and to a
certain extent flourished.
Tried by this test, Zoroastrianism has made good its claim to be called
the ‘excellent religion.’ Its followers, the limited community of Parsees
in India, are honourably distinguished for probity, intelligence,
enterprise, public spirit, benevolence, tolerance, and other good
qualities. By virtue of these qualities they have raised themselves
to a prominent position in our Indian empire, and take a leading part
in its commerce and industrial enterprise. The chief shipbuilder at
Bombay, the first great native railway contractor, the founder of cotton
factories, are all Parsees, and they are found as merchants, traders, and
shopkeepers in all the chief towns of British India, and distant places
such as Aden and Zanzibar. Their commercial probity is proverbial, and,
as in England, they have few written agreements, the word of a Parsee,
like that of an Englishman, being considered as good as his bond. Their
high character and practical aptitude for business are attested by the
fact that the first mayor, or chairman of the Corporation of Bombay, was
a Parsee who was elected by the unanimous vote both of Europeans and
natives.
The position of women affords perhaps the best test of the real
civilisation and intrinsic worth of any community. Where men consider
women as inferior creatures it is a sure proof that they themselves are
so. They are totally wanting in that delicacy and refinement of nature
which distinguishes the true gentleman from the snob or the savage, and
are coarse, vulgar brutes, however disguised under a veneer of outward
polish. On the other hand, respect for women implies self-respect,
nobility of nature, capability of rising to high ideals above the sordid
level of animal appetite and the selfish supremacy of brute force.
The Parsees in this respect stand high, far higher than any other
Oriental people, and on a level with the best European civilisation.
The equality of the sexes is distinctly laid down in the Zoroastrian
scriptures. Women are always mentioned as a necessary part of the
religious community. They have the same religious rites as the men. The
spirits of deceased women are invoked as well as those of men. Long
contact with the other races of India, and the necessity for some outward
conformity to the practices of Hindoo and Mahometan rulers, did something
to impair the position of females as regards public appearances, though
the Parsee wife and mother always remained a principal figure in the
Parsee household; and latterly, under the security of English rule,
Parsee ladies may be seen everywhere in public, enjoying just as much
liberty as the ladies of Europe or America. Nor are they at all behind
their Western sisters in education, accomplishments, and, it may be
added, in daintiness of fashionable attire. In fact, an eager desire for
education has become a prominent feature among all classes of the Parsee
community, and they are quite on a par with the Scotch, German, and other
European races in their efforts to establish schools, and in the numbers
who attend, and especially of those who obtain distinguished places in
the higher schools and colleges, such as the Elphinstone Institute and
the Bombay University. Female education is also actively promoted, and no
prejudices stand in the way of attendance at the numerous girls’ schools
which have been established, or even of studying in medical colleges,
where Parsee women attend lectures on all branches of medical science
along with male students. Those who know the position of inferiority and
seclusion in which women are kept among all other Oriental nations can
best appreciate the largeness and liberality of spirit of a religion
which, in spite of all surrounding influences, has rendered such a thing
possible in such a country as India.
Another prominent trait of the Parsee character is that of philanthropy
and public spirit. In proportion to their numbers and means they raise
more money for charitable objects than any other religious sect. And they
raise it in a way which does the greatest credit to their tolerance and
liberality. For instance, the Parsees were the principal subscribers to
a fund raised in Bombay in aid of the ‘Scottish Corporation,’ and quite
recently a Parsee gentleman gave 16,000_l._ towards the establishment of
a female hospital under the care of lady doctors, although the benefit of
such an institution would be confined principally to Mahometan and Hindoo
women, Parsee women having no prejudice against employing male doctors.
The public spirit shown by acts like this is the trait by which the
Parsee community is most honourably distinguished, and in respect of
which it must be candidly confessed it far surpasses not only other
Oriental races, but most European nations, including our own. Whatever
the reason may be, the fact is certain that in England, while a great
deal of money is spent in charity, lamentably little is spent from the
enormous surplus wealth of the country on what may be called public
objects. There is neither religious influence nor social opinion brought
to bear on the numerous class who have incomes far beyond any possible
want, to teach them that it should be both a pleasure and a pride to
associate their names with some act of noble liberality. A better spirit
we may hope is springing up, and there have been occasional instances
of large sums applied to public purposes, such as parks and colleges,
by private individuals, principally of the trading and manufacturing
classes, such as the Salts, Crossleys, Baxters, and Holloways; but on the
whole the amount contributed is miserably small. It is probably part of
the price we pay for aristocratic institutions that those who inherit or
accumulate great fortunes consider it their primary object to perpetuate
or to found great families. Be this as it may, a totally different spirit
prevails among the Parsees of Bombay, where it has been truly stated
that hardly a year passes without some wealthy Parsee coming forward
to perform a work of public generosity. The instance of Sir Jamsedjee
Jijibhoy, who attained a European reputation for his noble benevolence,
is only one conspicuous instance out of a thousand of this ‘public
spirit’ which has become almost an instinctive element in Parsee society.
How far the large and liberal religion may be the cause of the large
and liberal practice, it is impossible to say. Other influences have
doubtless been at work. The Parsees are a commercial people, and commerce
is always more liberal with its money than land. They are the descendants
of a persecuted race, and as a rule it is better to be persecuted than to
persecute. Still, after making all allowances, it remains that the tree
cannot be bad which bears such fruits; the religion must be a good one
which produces good men and women and good deeds.
Statistical facts testify quite as strongly to the high standard of the
Parsee race, and the practical results which follow from the observance
of the Zoroastrian ritual. A small death-rate and a large proportion
of children prove the vigorous vitality of a race. The Parsees have
the lowest death-rate of any of the many races who inhabit Bombay. The
average for the two years 1881 and 1882 per thousand was for Hindoos
26·11; for Mussulmans 30·46; for Europeans 20·18; for Parsees 19·26.
The percentage of children under two years old to women between fifteen
and forty-five was 30·27 for Parsees, as against Hindoos 22·24, and
Mussulmans 24·9, showing incontestably greater vitality and greater care
for human life.
Of 6,618 male and 2,966 female mendicants in the city of Bombay, only
five male and one female were Parsees.
These figures speak for themselves. It is evident that a religion in
which such results are possible cannot be unfavourable to the development
of the ‘mens sana in corpore sano;’ and that, although we may not turn
Zoroastrians, we may envy some of the results of a creed which inculcates
worship of the good, the pure, and the beautiful in the concerns of daily
life, as well as in the abstract regions of theological and philosophical
speculation.