Gujarát and the Gujarátis/Parsis

by Behramji Malabari

PARSIS.

Gujarát was long the head-quarters of the Parsis, especially so Surat and the adjoining towns; and it can now boast of some "very good "families. But the Parsis of Surat have fallen upon evil days. The Shettia class, that is, the aristocracy, became, by training, lazy, listless, gregarious creatures, grovelling for generations in one and the same groove. They cannot understand patriotism, and though charity is the very basis of their grand old faith, they are utter strangers to that greatest of divine graces. Their notion of charity is the giving away of alms, the distribution of money—their own and anybody else's—to the deserving or undeserving, with some object, often that of earning popularity or official favour. That comprehensive virtue, which inculcates a spirit of justice and generosity and total forgiveness, they lack the faculty to appreciate. They know not, the bulk of them, the true nature of charity. No doubt our Shetts are loyal to the British "Crown; but to what ruling power have they ever been disloyal? Loyalty is their policy, their interest. Excepting in this matter, the Parsi Shett of Surat is an honest, peace-loving citizen. He seldom beats his wife, and is otherwise a very pious, moral old gentleman, with a few "old-gentlemanly vices," and many old-gentlemanly virtues.

There are Parsi Shetts in Bombay, too, a shade better than those in Surat. They are more civilised, so to say, but all their civilisation does not save them from priestly influence. Five to twelve Parsi Shetts compose what is called a Puncháyet.

The Puncháyet and the Shett

The Puncháyet is a highly respectable body, but it seems to be a body without a soul; for none of its many members, it seems, can call his soul his own. The Puncháyet Shett is often a prim old individual, well shaven, well washed, and well scented. This faultlessly white being walks as if he were a basket of newly-laid eggs. He seems to be in dread of progress, of the very motion of life. Sloth is his idea of the fashionable. His limbs move very cautiously and very slowly, as if at every stage there were concealed Sir Richard Temple to chaff him about his "blue blood." He hates action of any kind. He hugs indolence, rejoices in its company, and revels in its seductive bosom. When, once in six months, he is required to attend to a little public business, he helplessly turns to his steward and asks, broken-hearted, "Oh! what's to do again?" as if only an hour ago he had done some tremendous deed of heroism for his country! The Shett sits down with a grimace, stands up with a yawn, salutes with an ogle or with a rather original parting of lips, which process he flatters himself is a smile. He is sensitively nervous about his health. He will not get out of his carriage till a few minutes after it has stopped; this is to avoid any internal agitation which might follow a hasty descent. He cannot go to sleep without a stout cotton pillow tied round his "food-bag."^[1] Except in these respects the Shett is a very worthy citizen, and a thoroughly loyal subject of Her Majesty. But he has no strength, no stamina. He can look no man in the face.

The Parsi a "Hebrew Jew"!

There would seem to be pretty good ground for Dr. Wilson's startling theory that the Parsis are one of the lost "Ten Tribes." There are many striking points of similarity, many common weaknesses and common virtues between Hebrews and Parsis. The difference between them to-day seems to be that the Parsi life is infinitely less intense and less patriotic. A Parsi may be a Hebrew with the vices and weaknesses of the lower class of Hindus. For this deterioration he has to thank climate and marriage with Hindu women. Scarcely any Parsi living can claim to be of the pure Persian "blue blood."

Our "Forlorn Hopes."

It is in the middle ranks of life that we can perceive materials for "a mighty, puissant nation." If this glorious middle class goes on educating itself, it may one day realise the future which has been predicted for it by the ancient seers. Besides keeping abreast of the rapid advance of arts and sciences, the people have to learn patriotism and to abjure priestcraft. Above all, they have to create or organise a new national church, founded on the simple tradition of good thought, good word, and good deed, bequeathed by Zoroaster. Let them weed their scriptures of its verbiage, and let them defy the threats of the Levites. Let them see that neither greatness nor happiness is to be achieved by a compromise with the conscience.

The Orthodox Parsi at Prayer.

But for true national greatness, sincerity in all we do, and some rational scheme of life for "here and there" are essential. Unfortunately for him, the Parsi is either insincere or irrational. In the most solemn business of life, at his prayers and devotions, the Parsi makes a droll figure. I mean the orthodox Parsi. To him prayer is as necessary as food, and the time for it recurs oftener than the time for his meals. The minute he is out of bed the orthodox Parsi shakes himself free of all idle reveries, the remnants of the night's dreaming ;and unfolding the triple cord^[2] round his waist, turns his face to where the sun has just risen, and giving the sacred badge three vigorous flaps, he cries out in choice Zend, "Defeat, defeat to Shaitán,"^[3]so that the author of evil may not venture, later on, to molest the pious man on his path of duty. Shortly after he takes his bath, and then commences the regular prayer business. He has his prayer-book in Zend text and Gujaráti character, out of which he recites an appropriate prayer or two either before the kitchen fire, before the blazing censer in the drawing-room, before the sacred fire of the neighbouring temple, and even in one of the central fire-temples—this according to his circumstances or the degree of the devotion he possesses. At other times he prays before the sun, the moon, the stars, the well, the river, the sea, the plant, the tree, the mountain. He sees nothing wrong in some of these improvised keblás.^[4], and I do not see what right I have to make him see otherwise. My business is with the quantity of his devotions. These are five in form, according to five natural divisions of his day. In quality these devotions are good and healthy, but they are hopelessly "mixed." Very often there is a long piece for quiet reading and meditation, which the pious Zoroastrian drawls out line by line with well-executed ejaculations and the approved nasal twang, but without the vaguest notion of what he is doing. This is a sorry exhibition, and to the younger generation it is becoming a farce. An educated person, with power to discriminate between right and wrong, cannot help repudiating idle formularies which consist in mere mumbling over an extent of jaw-breaking jargon. And yet there are sensible men in the community who cannot understand why a spirit of infidelity, a feeling certainly more dangerous than mere passive indifference, which in itself is ominous enough, should prevail in the Zoroastrian world. The reasons are obvious enough. There is very little element of genuine devotion in the formularies as at present gone through. There is no intelligent appreciation of the recitals. The priest says his prayers for hire. He mumbles a certain quantity of jargon without indicating the least appreciation. There is no solemnity, no dignity, often no decency in the performance of the hireling priest. He knows it all to be humbug, and he gets through it as fast as he can, to see if he can give the benefit of his services to another credulous client soon after. And the devout layman! How does he offer prayers? He recites chapter after chapter of matter which he ought to read once in a way, which contains some excellent moral or philosophical dissertation, but which has as little of devotional merit as Gulliver's Travels! He does not understand a word of what he recites, and therefore he does so necessarily without any intelligent appreciation. He wastes from six to eight hours of his day under a mistaken sense of duty. What he wants is to thank his Creator for His mercies, and to beg of Him to continue these. Not knowing how to do it in language he can understand, he wades through his volume of bewildering phraseology containing learned discourses on matters astronomical, geological, metaphysical, moral, and social! Morning and evening he is haunted by visions of duty, and however oppressed at the prospect of the distasteful task before him, he gets through it with the patience of a martyr. But the attention, which is never wholly absorbed by such work, is apt to be disturbed and distracted. Hence it is not unfrequent to see the orthodox Parsi at prayer breaking out into abuse of his neighbour, into snatches of conversation or observation, and many other acts besides, which have nothing at all to do with the solemn affair in hand. The Zend prayer is always wound up with a personal supplication in Gujaráti. The devout gentleman is considerably relieved when he comes to this part of the edifying business. Here he at last understands what he says. And what does he say? Why, he thanks, in a sort of way, and as fast as he can, his Creator for his past favours; and then he asks for future blessings. True to his Asiatic instincts, he has "an eye to business," even in this solemn obligation of life. He prays not because it is his duty to do so, but because a prayer opens the way for a request! So he thinks, and so he acts. Who has not seen the orthodox Parsi of a morning or evening at the sea-shore? With what arts, what blandishments, he tries to seduce the Will Divine! How he bows, how he bends, how he kneels, how he promises and coaxes, threatens and bullies Heaven! How he scratches his nose in repentance, and holds up his skirt-corner in hope of receiving instantly the good things of life he prays for! And what decent man will not be shocked at this miserable travesty? If devotional services are a necessary institution for the people, let them be so; but why this public exhibition which exposes the community to the ridicule of all others? What presumption that a man should ask Deity to think of him, and him exclusively! The presumption becomes simply unpardonable when the supplicant descends to details such as asking God to get him good interest for his money, to provide his son with a suitable berth, and his daughter with an eligible husband! God is asked to be a match-maker and a broker; he is requested to be engrossed with the supplicant's affairs altogether, as if the Creator and Upholder of the vast and magnificent universe had nothing better to do than to devote His time to the affairs of an infinitesimal and insignificant worm-like man! The fact is the average orthodox Parsi has mistaken the scope and spirit of genuine devotion till he has drifted into a callous, selfish, presumptuous creature, unworthy of the name of Zoroastrian. And this is entirely owing to the mystery in which a crafty priesthood has hitherto shrouded his scriptures.

The Reformed Parsi of the Period.

As for the young or, as he is called, the reformed Parsi, I doubt if he is a true Zoroastrian at all; he scorns everything that requires self-denial. It is often good to be independent, and I would not so much mind if the Parsi youth tried to live independently of any human religion, and at the same time to be an honest, useful man, desirous of leaving the world the better for his having lived in it. But it is not so with the average young Parsi. How could it be so, poor fellow, whilst he is in the transition period of his national existence, wavering and undecided at every stage of thought and of action? The Parsi youth's infidelity is directly and indirectly due to the Dustoors—the priestly class. The Dustoor is an hereditary functionary, and he thinks it his interest to keep the people grovelling in ignorance and superstition. In so doing the Dustoor, unconsciously perhaps to himself, remains ignorant and superstitious. I confess I bear the Dustoor no love. In revenge for the harm he has done to a great people, let me describe the worst of his class, now happily becoming extinct.

The Dustoor.

[His origin; rise; decline; his fall un-fathomable; his ways of life; his sympathies, antipathies, and miseries; what to do with him.]

The Dustoor is the ignis fatuus of the dark ages of religion. Historians of free-thought consider him a myth, whilst the faithful claim for him a direct descent from the Magi^[5] of old. If magi is Greek for maggots, then there is much sense in the latter interpretation, as the Dustoor's creed is, above all, very maggoty. But these interpretations do not at all settle the questions of origin. There is much doubt about the primary meaning of the compound or hybrid Dustoor. Some say it is a good Persian word meaning "pious leader" (vide Persian dictionary), others assert that Dusthoor, which is the correct rendering, means literally " the hand of Hoor." Max Müller lets off the Dustoor with the gentle hint that he originally came from Chinese Tartary. But M. M. is a wag. The intense Rast Goftar^[6] can prove that Dustoor means the most heinous offender against the law of God and man. But probably the most correct interpretation is that furnished by the broad and eclectic Bombay Review. That worthy reviewer has ascertained, by light of the most recent researches in Persia, that Dustoor is the father of that disastrous system of dusturi^[7] which is eating up the Municipality, the Commissariat, and every other Department of State. This is a hit. It shows how many others, besides the priest-ridden Parsis, are writhing in the cruel grip of the Dustoor. The Municipal Commissioner, the Commissary General, the Railway Agent, the Viceroy, the Secretary of State, all, all are under the baneful influence of this father of Dustoori. Worse still, the Ráo Sáhib Vishwanáth Náráyan Mandlik,^[8] in his great work on Hindu Law, openly says that Dustoor means Custom. Cruel custom has been the ruin of India's social life, and Ráo Sáhib Vishwanáth Náráyan Mandlik, C.S.I., F.R.A.S., conclusively proves that the Dustoor is Custom itself! Truth is stranger than fiction.

Such, then, is the origin of Dustoor. There is absolutely no truth in Darwin's alleged insinuation that the genus Dustoor includes the hedgehog and the porcupine. Indeed, I cannot go so far as to deny that the Dustoor bears a strong resemblance to the "Ferocious Dooly." Members of Parliament are supposed to know all about it. But Darwin's supposed theory staggers me; and, as an admirer of the Dustoor, I cannot help saying that Darwin is the greatest and maddest of wags.

When the wave-worn exiles of Irán^[9] first stood in the kindly presence of Ráná Jádava of Gujarát, there was no such thing as a particular Dustoor, among them. Up to recently the Dustoor had a shadowy existence. But it waxed into such fierce light by degrees, that the Dustoor made it too hot for any sensible person to stand in his shadow. Then, by the law of action and reaction, as philosophers write, there grew up a new power in Parsidom—a Puncháyet. Then came a sudden change, a sort of depression, over the spirit of the Dustoor's dream. In its turn the Puncháyet, too, has become a thing of the past, making room for another social regeneration, the Ráhmumái. But this Mái,^[10] too, is getting too old-motherly, and may have to defer to the pressing demands of the younger generation to have truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.

But even in his declining glory the Dustoor is not a personage to be despised. Far from it. He lives in better style than ever did old Friar Tuck. In eating and drinking he is thoroughly Garagantuan. He has all the animal spirits of a Rabelais without anything of his finely-concealed spirituality. They say the Dustoor never speaks while eating. Why should he, when what he eats is enough to make a feast for the gods?

The Dustoor can put on looks of portentous learning, but inside his head all is a Dead Sea, a Desert of Sahara. The most noticeable features of his dress are the muslin petticoat^[11] and the cauliflower pugri.^[12]

The Dustoor will never eat or drink with the Hindu or Mussalman, though he may take a cup of tea or a glass of ice-cream with a European official. He hates the Hindu or Mussalman, whose shadow is so polluting that the Dustoor has to soak his hirsute carcase in cow urine and water for having crossed such shadow under certain circumstances.

The Dustoor Sáhib is very pious, and prays day and night for anyone that will pay him. He is chief mourner at a funeral, and gets handsomely paid. He is chief actor at wedding and other social parties, and is more handsomely paid. He is a good hand at match-making and match- breaking, and is most handsomely paid. These are his doors of income, or his "windows of income," as he modestly and sorrowfully puts it.

To the widow in affliction—that is, with a large property and no heirs—the Dustoor's soul goes forth with resistless ardour. Well endowed young widows are very wild creatures; but between the Dustoor, the doctor, and the lawyer, they are soon tamed into lambs.

The Dustoor has a tendency to poking his nose in everybody's concerns; and every honest man hates your prying, paltering, button-holeing busy-body. In this respect the Government is the most suffering victim of his persecution. He follows the Governor with odes, elegies, charms, and benedictions, and overhangs the august "presence" till the thing is "accepted with thanks." This note of acknowledgment the Dustoor frames in a looking-glass or a mirror. It is said that Sir Philip Wodehouse,^[13] who had a mortal horror of the Dustoor, actually contemplated an anti-Dustoori Act; but Mr. Gibbs,^[14] who has a tear for every sinner, interposed, and said a J.P.-ship^[15] would do as well. I am not quite sure if the Dustoor is yet branded with those terrible letters of fire; but sooner or later he is sure to be a J.P. That is his kishmct.^[16]Poor man! It will be the last straw on the camel's back. May he be spared that last bitter humiliation. They have made him a Fellow^[17] already, lower than the Puttawala.^[18] The Dustoor is afflicted by a fell disease, a most enervating and gangrenous tumour on each of his shoulders. The tumour has a very pleasant exterior, but there is no concealing the fact that it is noxious at the core. The disease is called Shetlia by social doctors, and threatens to be the death of the poor Dustoor.

What to do with the Shett-ridden Dustoor in order to save the Dustoor-ridden laity,is a serious question. We know of two remedies only. Assuming the Bombay Review's theory as to the origin of Dustoor to be correct, the best thing we could do with him would be to hand him over to Mr. Hyndman.^[19] The Dustoor is at the bottom of the "bleeding" process, and we can guess how Mr. Hyndman would deal with the vampire.

The second best thing would be to send the Dustoor on a long tour in Europe and America in charge of a capable bear-leader. Such tour is sure to do the unfortunate patient much good, the best of it being that he would know his exact place in the world.

As to the Rast Goftar's (Truth Teller) clamours to have the Dustoor delivered up to him, I think that such a course would be wanton cruelty. The streets of Bombay are not made for bull- fights.

There are many other ways in which to utilise the Dustoor, such as damming up the breach in the Narbadá bridge, sending up to Kandahar for transport duty, to Simla for exhibition, to the Jamsetji Hospital for vivisection, &c. &c.

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1. Stomach.
2. The kusti.
3. Satan.
4. Mediums or things facing which the Orientals offer prayers.
5. The wise men of Iran and Parthia.
6. The leading Gujaráti weekly in Bombay.
7. Petty but systematic bribery.
8. A scholar, jurist, and prominent citizen of Bombay.
9. Ancient Persia.
10. Mother.
11. His robe is very much like a huge female garment.
12. Turban.
13. Governor of Bombay in 1875.
14. Now Member of the Supreme Council of India.
15. Justice of the Peace—an honorary office in Bombay.
16. Fate.
17. Fellow of the University.
18. A belted messenger.
19. An enthusiastic English writer on Indian politico-financial questions, who says India is being bled to death.