Parsis
The 19th century saw more Parsis coming to India, particularly to Mumbai.
A century later, Persia had been renamed Iran by Reza Shah, a Nazi sympathiser, who wanted to remind the world that the word ‘Arya’ was first inscribed by the Achaemenid emperor Darius the Great over 2,500 years ago, at Behistun, a large rock relief in the mountains of western Iran.
The new wave of immigrants to India were called Iranis, and became famous for their cafe culture.
Though they follow the same monotheistic faith and come from the same homeland, Iranis are seen as a separate community by the Parsis
The Parsi community forms the transition zone between the monotheistic mythologies of West Asia and the polytheistic mythologies of South Asia.
Genetic, linguistic and archaeological evidence now informs us that the eastern arm of the Indo-European speaking people, who domesticated the horse and invented the chariot around 2000 BC, settled in the Oxus basin around 1700 BC, where they were exposed to a thermogenic herb.
They split into two groups — one went west towards Iran, and referred to the herb as ‘homa’, while the other crossed the Hindu Kush, and came east to India and called the herb ‘soma’.
The former mingled with the Mesopotamians and became monotheists under influence of a prophet called Zarathustra.
He referred to the Devil as Angra Manyu, and to demons as ‘div’.
The latter referred to their gods as ‘deva’. For the west-moving Ariya people, Yima was the first human; for the east-moving Aryas, Yama was the first human who died.
Fire temples
The fire temples of the Zoroastrians, frequented by those who call themselves Parsis or the people of Persia, are distinguished by their unique artwork that evokes memories of ancient Mesopotamia: giant winged bulls with human heads, and birds with human torso and head.
These creatures can be traced to 8th century BC Assyrian architecture in the lands we now call Iraq.
They eventually made their way to Persia, by the 5 BC.
The fantastic beasts combined the strength of bulls and eagles, and were seen as servants of the ‘one true God’.
Gods were represented by images back then, and housed in temples.
But the Persians chose fire, preferably that which came from the sky as lightning, to represent the formless Ahura Mazda — the benevolent power, one who is not a jealous god, one who does not demand obedience.
Persian monotheism influenced the Jewish community, which was exiled in Babylon at the time.
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