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

106 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. II.

era of Yazdezard, the last king of the ancient Persian monarchy. No such contention, it may be stated, exists among the Zoroastrians in their fatherland.

The Parsis reckon their year by three hundred and sixty-five days. Every month among the Parsis is a calendar month of thirty days, commencing with the month Fravardin and ending with Spendarmad. At the end of three hundred and sixty days, five days, which are named Gathas, are added, thus making three hundred and sixty-five days in the year. The five hours and fifty-four seconds are not taken into consideration in their reckoning, so, in order to accord with the correct solar year, the ancient Persians are reported to have, at the end of every one hundred and twenty years, made the “Kabisa” or intercalation, that is to say, added a month to the period. The Persian Zoroastrians, either from want of knowledge or mere forgetfulness, discontinued the Kabisa after they lost the sovereignty of their land, while the Parsis are reported to have once intercalated during their residence in Khorassan, and this fact has brought into existence the two sects, as will be explained hereafter.

In the year 1090 one Jamasp, a learned Zoroastrian from Persia, arrived at Surat to undertake the instruction of the “mobeds” or priests, and he was the first to discover that his co-religionists in India were

a month behind their brethren of Iran in commencing