Jashn-e-Sadeh - Long separated, Indian and Iranian Zartoshtis celebrate together - in Poona, India.

[Death Professor]

I wish I could upload videos my kids took. Unfortunately the forum gives a message that they are too big.

You can upload on you-tube or any other video service then link it here.

 

[darksider]

You have become a full time Zoroastrianism preacher after returning, Doc.

he is trying to convert iranian Muslims.want take over iran.
staff should strictly ban religious base threads.they are not learning from recent incident which turn into very ugly.

 

[Agnihotra]

Our prayers and yours with eyes closed and a fine ear for linguistic nuances, cadence, pitch, and intonation are very similar.

True, when we do yoga, Dhyan or pray we don't just do om sound mindlessly like neo-Hindiosm, we imagine a fire as a form of god since we can't make an Idol out of god.

That's one of the legacy our Vedic Brahman forefathers we have kept Alive.

This has been told to me by more than one Brahmin when they had the opportunity of attending a Navjote (Zoroastrian thread investiture ceremony) or Lagan (marriage) and hear our Dasturs praying.

We also have Janeu/sacred thread ceremony, one of the most important day of our entire life beside marriage for Brahmins ,Still remember mine after all these years.

Just 3 days ago I attended my relatives Janeu ceremony, dude looked majestic with janeu as he's a strong guy and have hazel eyes.

Thetations are very powerful. And some Dasturs are just gifted (and much sought after) for their powerful and melodious voices and delivery.

Unfortunately though, it is not the done thing (frowned upon in fact) to videotape their prayers and the fire, hence I do not have those to share.

You father is a good looking man.

Cheers, Doc

That must be a unique case for parsis, we videotape everything during our religious ceremonies.

 

[padamchen]

True, when we do yoga, Dhyan or pray we don't just do om sound mindlessly like neo-Hindiosm, we imagine a fire as a form of god since we can't make an Idol out of god.

That's one of the legacy our Vedic Brahman forefathers we have kept Alive.



We also have Janeu/sacred thread ceremony, one of the most important day of our entire life beside marriage for Brahmins ,Still remember mine after all these years.

Just 3 days ago I attended my relatives Janeu ceremony, dude looked majestic with janeu as he's a strong guy and have hazel eyes.



That must be a unique case for parsis, we videotape everything during our religious ceremonies.

No electricity or photography allowed near the sanctum of Atash Bahrams. Agyaris have electricity. No photography.

The thread ceremony has got to be proof of a common origin.

Only in our case every Zoroastrian has it. Boy and girl. And not only priests.

The Muslim gireban comes from our holy vest, the Sudreh.

Cheers, Doc

 

[Agnihotra]

No electricity or photography allowed near the sanctum of Atash Bahrams. Agyaris have electricity. No photography.

South Indian temples such as Tirupati have similar views, you can only see Idol of god from the light of tiny lamp/diya after sunset.

The thread ceremony has got to be proof of a common origin.

Only in our case every Zoroastrian has it. Boy and girl. And not only priests.

The Muslim gireban comes from our holy vest, the Sudreh.

Cheers, Doc

In our case only Brahmans do thread ceremony, only boys.

The priest who performs the ceremony is considered lifelong Guru of the boy, fortunately my Guru is my own uncle.

 

[Nilgiri]

I do not understand @darksider 's point to be honest, so I wouldn't know what or how to answer.

We've had the whole of India for over a thousand years now. As much or less as any other people who've been here before us.

What has India not given us that a homeland gives to its sons?

Even the recent refugee taunts are more a symptom of the current malaise India and all Indians are suffering from and nothing we ascribe to our land or our people even a little bit.

And to be fair, a lot of it online is reactionary to the healthy doses of needling that I do from my side.

There are sections of course who are seriously diseased. But then Parsis are not special in any way in the treatment they receive. India is full of group-on-group fractiousness from north to south and from west to east. Its who we are and what we are, and its why we as a people have always believed in Indian first above all other identities.

Its why we abhor divisive ideologies, blood brother on brother.

Cheers, Doc

You will always be welcome in India my friend. Your lot have contributed so much for how few you are.

I directed you to respond, because he assumed I am implying that you are going to set up a new country or something (hence he implied that why not set one up where you are etc). That is not it at all (just so Iranian members reading this know)....I never dictate any political situation to any other country or people. It is for you and Iranian people to figure out where things go in future.

I just want you lot to have more cultural space wherever possible, so you may practice your faith and culture in more peace and breathe new air into your ancient religion....just like a fire needs good replenishment, good stoking and good air-bellows to make good steel (I have always wondered if the great Jamshedji made any such conceptual link to his heritage)

As you know I easily have mine...and many others have theirs (pristine cultural spaces). Everyone in the world deserves it (if they so desire it) wherever they have originated from and also spread to (for whatever reason)....something pure and unchanging as possible, kept away and shielded from the globalised rancor, extreme-liberalism and identity intersectional politics (which as you have felt takes the biggest toll on successful minorities of any country) filling up everywhere else like a sloppy goo. Your people already are great, you need to become greater. My best wishes always.

 

[padamchen]

You will always be welcome in India my friend. Your lot have contributed so much for how few you are.

I directed you to respond, because he assumed I am implying that you are going to set up a new country or something (hence he implied that why not set one up where you are etc). That is not it at all (just so Iranian members reading this know)....I never dictate any political situation to any other country or people. It is for you and Iranian people to figure out where things go in future.

I just want you lot to have more cultural space wherever possible, so you may practice your faith and culture in more peace and breathe new air into your ancient religion....just like a fire needs good replenishment, good stoking and good air-bellows to make good steel (I have always wondered if the great Jamshedji made any such conceptual link to his heritage)

As you know I easily have mine...and many others have theirs (pristine cultural spaces). Everyone in the world deserves it (if they so desire it) wherever they have originated from and also spread to (for whatever reason)....something pure and unchanging as possible, kept away and shielded from the globalised rancor, extreme-liberalism and identity intersectional politics (which as you have felt takes the biggest toll on successful minorities of any country) filling up everywhere else like a sloppy goo. Your people already are great, you need to become greater. My best wishes always.

@Tokhme khar and @Oscar are both right in their own ways.

Language is going to be the bridge.

Lots of Parsis asked the Iranians to explain to them what the songs meant.

And the Parsi high priest was instructing the Irani priests on some ritualistic nuances in English.

And the Iranian priest at the end blessed us in our Avestan prayers, and then addressed us in English. Heavily Iranian accented. Compared to our very ladida Brit accents. Lol

Even during grub, the Iranians were speaking in Farsi (I guess) and we in Gujarati and when we spoke to one another (tons of questions, sadly not enough dudes my vintage to swap stuff with) it was in English.

What is also very starkly visible is that the Iranians who were expats were very well off. Those who were from Iran were very middle class. You can make out ....

Cheers, Doc

 

[Nilgiri]

@Tokhme khar and @Oscar are both right in their own ways.

Language is going to be the bridge.

Lots of Parsis asked the Iranians to explain to them what the songs meant.

And the Parsi high priest was instructing the Irani priests on some ritualistic nuances in English.

And the Iranian priest at the end blessed us in our Avestan prayers, and then addressed us in English. Heavily Iranian accented. Compared to our very ladida Brit accents. Lol

Even during grub, the Iranians were speaking in Farsi (I guess) and we in Gujarati and when we spoke to one another (tons of questions, sadly not enough dudes my vintage to swap stuff with) it was in English.

What is also very starkly visible is that the Iranians who were expats were very well off. Those who were from Iran were very middle class. You can make out ....

Cheers, Doc

So are Parsis in process of learning Farsi then?

What would you say are the biggest things going on in Iran that significantly carry/preserve the earlier Zoroastrian identity to this day?

Nowruz (i.e calendar) is one...and I know the ancient epic of Persia (forgot the name) also heavily tied to it (especially the sassanid warrior stories etc)....and the domed religious edifice is a nice one I learned from your article recently too. I know some more, but will be interesting to hear it from you.

 

[padamchen]

So are Parsis in process of learning Farsi then?

What would you say are the biggest things going on in Iran that significantly carry/preserve the earlier Zoroastrian identity to this day?

Nowruz (i.e calendar) is one...and I know the ancient epic of Persia (forgot the name) also heavily tied to it (especially the sassanid warrior stories etc)....and the domed religious edifice is a nice one I learned from your article recently too. I know some more, but will be interesting to hear it from you.

Iranians have been Muslim for more than a thousand years.

During that time a hybrid narrative was built up that softened the blow to their collective psyche.

You cannot miss the same when they try and talk about Zoroastrianism. How little they know. And how wrong the myths that have been woven into their collective national subconscious.

What does not help of course is that Iran is no longer just Persian. Sure Persians as an ethnicity still are the majority (barely) at 60 odd percent. But it's like India now. Over a thousand years there has been a lot of inter-marrying. So while they might identify themselves as nominal Persians they have in their immediate families a lot of other cultural influences as well.

I would say their biggest strength is that they stayed together as a people and evolved together. So food, language, blood, clothes, customs, culture. These are all something they own. Iranian.

Their pre Islamic heritage and unbroken thread of their ancient faith that made them world rulers, we own. Persian.

Now how to bridge the two together?

No way is any Parsi going to accept an Arabized language and script, so let's get that out of the way first.

Cheers, Doc

 

[Nilgiri]

No way is any Parsi going to accept an Arabized language and script, so let's get that out of the way first.

If one knows Farsi, how mutually intelligible would the persian of Sassanid time be (obv just spoken form)?

 

[Tokhme khar]

Iraq and its meso culture was always aped by the Persian empire of the past. We used their cuneiform and many cultural mores and norms. The seat of power was always Iraq. It was from there we ruled the entire landmass. That's how it always was under the achemenid, parthian as well as the Sassanid empires.

 

[padamchen]

If one knows Farsi, how mutually intelligible would the persian of Sassanid time be (obv just spoken form)?

Old Persian (sister of Sanskrit) and Middle Persian (Pahlavi) are considered the classical languages, along with Latin and Sanskrit.

Middle Persian officially died and was replaced by New Persian (Farsi) about 1200 years ago. Around 850 AD is the transition date generally agreed upon.

Pahlavi was the language of the last Persian empire.

Farsi originated not from Middle Persian but from Khorasan in the north east, much closer to Dari (Afghan Persian ... and the Persian Zoroastrian Iroons in India speak today).

Middle Persian was systematically killed by the Arabs for obvious reasons. There is terabytes of stuff on the net about how they went about doing it.

Farsi is what they propagated by state control. Think the Brits and what they did to India.

Tons of grammatical and syntax changes to mirror Arabic yet still be considered "Persian". And the injection of a huge number of Arabic words is what followed. And thus was born the Persian that is spoken by modern Iranians.

The recent Islamic Revolution was even more interesting as Khomeini went about and Arabized the language still more.

Overnight many words got added and internalized and mainstreamed. Amd many original ones were officially frowned upon, even banned.

Iran now has many generations of young kids who are carrying Arabic names. Many Persian names having been officially banned. Forgotten. Disappeared. Wiped out.

To the extent that hundreds of thousands of Iranian expats change their first names the moment they leave Iran. Taking on a Persian name as their first act of defiance in freedom.

This is the truth.

And this is not what Parsis are going to go back to after a thousand years of sacrifice.

Cheers, Doc

 

[Tokhme khar]

Its hard to find young kids today with Arabic names. Persian names are prevalent. Trends come and go. I bet most of us 'real Iranians' here have Persian names.

 

[padamchen]

I'm just saying what's out there on the web and from the people I have spoken to.

Yes we could also take anecdotal claims of "real Iranians" with Iranian flags on PDF as the truth. I concede.

By that measure, I have an old Persian flag.

https://iranian.com/Jan96/Articles/FreedIranianNames.html?site=archive

Cheers, Doc

 

[Agnihotra]

Old Persian (sister of Sanskrit) and Middle Persian (Pahlavi) are considered the classical languages, along with Latin and Sanskrit.

Middle Persian officially died and was replaced by New Persian (Farsi) about 1200 years ago. Around 850 AD is the transition date generally agreed upon.

Pahlavi was the language of the last Persian empire.

Farsi originated not from Middle Persian but from Khorasan in the north east, much closer to Dari (Afghan Persian ... and the Persian Zoroastrian Iroons in India speak today).

Middle Persian was systematically killed by the Arabs for obvious reasons. There is terabytes of stuff on the net about how they went about doing it.

Farsi is what they propagated by state control. Think the Brits and what they did to India.

Tons of grammatical and syntax changes to mirror Arabic yet still be considered "Persian". And the injection of a huge number of Arabic words is what followed. And thus was born the Persian that is spoken by modern Iranians.

The recent Islamic Revolution was even more interesting as Khomeini went about and Arabized the language still more.

Overnight many words got added and internalized and mainstreamed. Amd many original ones were officially frowned upon, even banned.

Iran now has many generations of young kids who are carrying Arabic names. Many Persian names having been officially banned. Forgotten. Disappeared. Wiped out.

To the extent that hundreds of thousands of Iranian expats change their first names the moment they leave Iran. Taking on a Persian name as their first act of defiance in freedom.

This is the truth.

And this is not what Parsis are going to go back to after a thousand years of sacrifice.

Cheers, Doc

I was surprised to see that Avastan language was like mirror to our Sanskrit, some slokas have over 95% similar words and meanings.

what kind of script Iranians used to write this language before current arabic script came ?