History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes
60 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. 11,
European travellers, by the Parsis who had gone to Persia to obtain information connected with their religion, and also by the Iranis who have visited India in our time, set all expectations at rest on that point. They showed that, instead of being in a position to impart knowledge, the Zoroastrians of the fatherland needed advice and instruction from those in India.
They have still, it is true, their fire- temples (thirty-four of them, both great and small, are situated in Yezd and its vicinity), but they possess no ancient hturgical books except those in the possession of their brethren in India. Professor Westergaard of Copenhagen, who visited Persia in the year 1843, wrote to his friend, the late Dr. Wilson of Bombay, as
follows on this subject :—
“I stopped at Yezd eleven days, and though I often went out among them, I did not see more than sixteen or seventeen books in all; two or three copies of the Vendidad Sade and the Izeshine (which they call Yagna), and six or seven of the Khorde Avesta, of which I got two and part of a third. These, besides part of the Bundesh and part of another Pehlevi book, were all I could get, though I tried hard to obtain more, especially part of the
zeshine with a Pehlevi, or as they say, Pazand translation, of which there is only one copy in Europe—at Copenhagen.”
The same learned traveller, speaking of the Zoroastrians now residing in Kerman, says :“The Guebres here are more brutalised than their brethren at
Yezd. They had only two copies of the Vendidad and Yaena, but a great many of the Khorde Avesta, which, however, they