[Added to Historical/General Fiction reading list of @ProjectWomanUp]
#ProjectWomanUp
She didn't know martial arts yet she was strong.
She broke from the sacred bond; society taunted her yet she was strong.
She came across a tragic truth; society h...
"Why don't we write something different this time?" Durga asked.
"What different article do we write?" Rudra asked.
Their second article was published. They received a call from a firm to place their advertisement in their website, paying them decent amount. Actually, it was good amount for first advertisement.
Durga thought for a while. Ramaiah spoke. "Maybe she is right, Rudra. We can write something different."
"Something different?" Rudra asked rubbing the nape of his neck.
Durga said, "India has always given refugee to people irrespective of their religion. Can we shed some light on any of those religion? Their culture? Similarity with our culture?"
Rudra and Ramaiah thought for a while. Suddenly their faces became excited. "Zoroastrianism!"
Durga looked at them confused. "Zoroastrianism?"
"Yes. Zoroastrianism."
***
"Rudra, have a final look at the draft. I will publish it with that advertisement," said Shekar.
Rudra nodded. This time, writing the whole draft took a day and half. Durga had already applauded Rudra and this time it was his turn to be shy.
The Everlasting Flame
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Locally they are known as Godha, these gigantic winged bulls with male human heads that flank the entrance to an agiary, which is Gujarati for a Parsi fire temple. Known to scholars as Lammasu, they were guardians to shrines and palaces of ancient Sumeria, Assyria, Babylonia, Persia and Mesopotamia. Today, in Mumbai and parts of Gujarat, they continue to be part of a living faith, Zoroastrianism, kept alive by the Parsis, whose ancestors immigrated to India from Iran over a thousand years ago. I have always wanted to enter an agiary and see what goes on within, how is the sacred fire kept and venerated. But I cannot. Only Parsis allowed. And one can only be born into the Parsi faith. One cannot become one.
Did Parsis institute restricted access to protect their faith? Did they adopt these exclusionary beliefs from Hindus who gave them refuge? Was it part of their faith originally in Iran? For the Bundahishn, a 10th century Pahlavi texts containing Zoroastrian cosmogony, does refer to a four-fold division of society made of priests, warriors, agriculturists and artisans, similar to the Vedic chatur-varna system, which forms the root of the 'jati' or caste system.
The older Avesta has much in common with the Indian Vedas. Both were composed around 4000 years ago leading scholars to conclude that they are two branches of the same 'Aryan' tree. Here, the much maligned word, Aryan, refers to a linguistic group, not a race or tribe, and is the subject of much debate with Euro-American scholars insisting that this language spread from Central Asia eastwards (Indo-Iranian branch) and westwards (European), while Indian scholars insisting that the roots of the Indo-European tree is firmly India, with the east being the Gangetic plains and the West being Europe and Iran. The scholarship in this matter is often more political than academic.
