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

CHapP. I.] NAVSART. 37

inscription’ in the same character it appears that. other Parsis again came to see them on the 5th of November a.p. 1021.

They are next traced to Navsari, and in the year A.D. 1142 a Parsi ‘“‘mobed” or priest of the name of Kamdin Yartosht is stated to have gone there from Sanjan with his family and relations for the purpose of performing the religious ceremonies of the Parsis residing at Navsari. The Parsis gave this place the name it bears, if a note in an old family paper still in the possession of the descendants of Merji Rana, the celebrated and learned high priest who flourished at Naysari about three hundred years ago, is to be trusted. According to this authority, when the Parsis arrived there in the year 511 of Yazdezard they found its climate quite as good as that of Mazandaran, one of the provinces in Persia. They named the city Navi-sari, or New Sari, and from that time it has been known as Navsari Nagmandal instead of by its former name Nagmandal.’

From the accounts given by early travellers in

1 The following is a translation of the second inscription :—

“Tn the name of God, Amen. In the year of Yazdezard 390 month Meher and day Din we have come to this place, viz. Mah Farubag and Mah Aidbar ; Panjbokhat of Mah Aidbar ; Martansat of Khairad Beram ; Khavitabat of Beram Din Avar; Bujarg Atun of Mah Bajdino; Khairad Farkhuna; Mah Aidbar and Bunsat and Mah Bandat of Aelar Mah.”

2 The editor of the Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency considers that this is incorrect, as Naysari is shown on Ptolemy’s map, A.D. 150.