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

112 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP, II.

the better knowledge at the present day of the Avesta language, as well as by the deciphering of Persian coins by European scholars, it has been ascertained that the Zoroastrian religion acknowledged intercalation. The Shehenshais were wrong in as much as since the fall of the Persian empire there had been no intercalation as was said to have been the case by their advocates. The assertion of the Kadmis, supported by the date current among the Zoroastrians in Persia at the present day, that no intercalation took place after the empire passed into the hands of the Mahomedan, is correct; but they were wrong in maintaining that intercalation is not enjoined by the Zoroastrian religion. It appears, therefore, that in the hot-headed “ Kabisa” controversy both parties were in the wrong.

The Gahambars of the Parsis are festivals denoting the several seasons of the year, and if the Parsi year began on the day stated, viz. the 21st of March, the festivals would take place in the proper seasons instead of their recurring, as they do at present, out of their seasons, owing to the intercalation not haying been enforced during the last thirteen hundred years. The fact is that there was no continuous era in Persia. Every king calculated his own era from the day of his accession to the throne, but with this provision, that if he ascended the throne before the 21st day of March—the commencement of the solar year—the first