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

30 HISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. I.

in grateful remembrance of Thy kindness and protection.” We cannot doubt that this prayer of faith was heard, for the storm abated, and a gentle gale carried them in safety to Sanjan, some twenty-five miles south of Daman, where they landed about the year A.D. 7161 The territory of Sanjan was then under the rule of a wise and liberal chief named Jadi Rana, to whom a venerable “ dastur” or high priest of the Parsis was sent, with suitable presents, in order to ascertain from him the terms on which they would be permitted to land. The “dastur,” on approaching the Rana, blessed him, and, having explaimed the reasons which caused the Parsis to leave their native

country, and detailed their sufferings and misfortunes,

1 According to the Kissah-i-Sanjan, the Parsis settled at Sanjan in the year 775, but the generally accepted date of the settlement—as stated by a ‘“‘dastur” or high priest of Broach named Dastur Aspandiarji Kamdinji, in a pamphlet written by him in 1826, on the question which was raised among the two sects of the Parsis, the Kadmis and Shehenshais, about the Parsi date, an account of which will be given later on——is the Hindu date Samvat 772, Shravan Shuddh 9th, and the Parsi date Roz Behman, Maha Tir. This Hindu year corresponds with 85 Yazdezardi and with the Christian year 716. Mr. Kharshedji Rastamji Kama, a Parsi Oriental scholar, has, in a learned essay published by him in the year 1870, explained that these Hindu and Parsi days do not fall together till the Christian year 936. Mr. Kama thinks that by some mistake the name of the day is substituted for that of the month and vice versd. Roz Tir, Maha Behman, instead of Roz Behman, Maha Tir, gives the aforesaid Hindu date within four days of the accepted date. That there has been some confusion of dates is highly probable, owing to the accounts of the first and subsequent emigrations having been confounded with each other.