History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

INTRODUCTION. XXV

A commercial life is unfavourable to any great research, and the Parsis not merely abandoned but completely forgot their original language. The instances were very rare of any scholar pursuing any deep inquiries into the earlier languages of the native land, such as the Zend, Pehlevi, and Pazand tongues. A knowledge of Persian itself sufficed to secure the fame of a scholar who in the earlier days was almost exclusively confined to the priestly class. The curiosity to ascertain some definite knowledge of the early creed and religious works of the Zoroastrians never allowed the lamp of knowledge, or perhaps it would be more correct to say of scholarship, to quite go out. But for the purposes of the trade to which Parsis long devoted their exclusive attention a scanty education sufficed. It was only when other openings of employment presented themselves, and when perhaps the example of Englishmen and closer contact with them revealed the advantages of education, and indéed its absolute necessity if the Parsis were to keep pace with the times, that they set themselves with zeal to learn whatever came within their reach. The credit of having set them the necessary example and of having shown them the advantages to be derived from the acquisition of knowledge belongs to Mountstuart Elphinstone, one of the most enlightened of Anglo-Indian statesmen. The flourish-

ing institution which bears his name was the fore-