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

CHAP. I.] AN EXCUSABLE DECEPTION. 33

the reader of forming an opinion of their true religion in subsequent pages of this work. It must, however, be frankly stated that the first Zoroastrian refugees in India played the part of dissemblers, and that these distichs were framed with the view of gaining the favour of the Hindu Rana. Although allusion is made in them to many minor ceremonies, which are no more the essentials of Zoroastrianism than of Christianity, yet, because of their approximation to certain ceremonies of the Hindus, prominence was given to them by the “dastur,” while he observed silence regarding the doctrines on which the religion of Zoroaster is really based.

The Parsi refugees had had sufficient opportunities of learning at Diu how jealous the Hindus were of association with people of other castes, from the dread of contamination to themselves. Followed as they had been by continual misfortune, and cast upon the world without a country or a home, the Parsis could not but be anxious to obtain, even at a great sacrifice, a landing-place and shelter for themselves and their families. Bearing this in mind it is quite possible, and indeed probable, that they answered the inquiries of the Hindu Rana in such a form as to win his good opinion. They concealed from the prince and his subjects all that would have appeared extraordinary or offensive to them, and supplied, in place thereof, ceremonies which were exclusively Hindu in

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