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[198] 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[199] 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[200] 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.
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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[202] 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 prim?val causes, which, though different, were united, and produced the world of material things as well as that of spirit. these two prim?val 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[203] 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,[204] 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[205] 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,[206] 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[207] 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[208] 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 formul? 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.[209] 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 ?schylus, 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’?
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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[211] 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.
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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[213] 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[214] 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[215] 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[216] 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 16,000l. 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[217] 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[218] 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.
