DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.22900#0080
HISTOR Y OF THE PARSIS. [chap. i.
India it appears that the Parsis had largely settled
in many cities of Upper India before the middle of
the ninth century. Whether they went there from
Western India or direct overland from Persia by
subsequent migrations it is now impossible to say. A
Mahomedan traveller in the middle of the ninth
century, Al Istakhiri, makes mention of some parts
of Hind and Sind as having been occupied by the
" Ghiebres," the name generally applied to the Parsis
by Mahomedan writers. Ibrahim the Ghaznavid is
said to have attacked in a.d. 1079 a colony of "fire-
worshippers " at Dehra Dun, which shows that there
were Parsis in the city prior to that event. That there
were Parsis in the Panjab before a.d. 1178 rests upon
more certain evidence, as a Parsi priest named Mahyar
is affirmed to have gone in that year from Uch, a city
at the meeting of the five rivers of the Panjab, to
Seistan in Persia, for the purpose of acquiring a
thorough knowledge of the religious rites of the
Parsis. After six years of study under learned
" dasturs " in Persia he returned to India in a.d. 1184
with a copy of the Pehlevi translation of the Ven-
diclad, an important work on the Parsi religion.
There appears to have been communication between
the Cambay and the Panjab Parsis, as in a.d. 1323 the
former possessed copies of the VencUdad which were
brought from Persia by Mahyar. In the accounts of
Timur's invasion of India we find the Parsis referred
India it appears that the Parsis had largely settled
in many cities of Upper India before the middle of
the ninth century. Whether they went there from
Western India or direct overland from Persia by
subsequent migrations it is now impossible to say. A
Mahomedan traveller in the middle of the ninth
century, Al Istakhiri, makes mention of some parts
of Hind and Sind as having been occupied by the
" Ghiebres," the name generally applied to the Parsis
by Mahomedan writers. Ibrahim the Ghaznavid is
said to have attacked in a.d. 1079 a colony of "fire-
worshippers " at Dehra Dun, which shows that there
were Parsis in the city prior to that event. That there
were Parsis in the Panjab before a.d. 1178 rests upon
more certain evidence, as a Parsi priest named Mahyar
is affirmed to have gone in that year from Uch, a city
at the meeting of the five rivers of the Panjab, to
Seistan in Persia, for the purpose of acquiring a
thorough knowledge of the religious rites of the
Parsis. After six years of study under learned
" dasturs " in Persia he returned to India in a.d. 1184
with a copy of the Pehlevi translation of the Ven-
diclad, an important work on the Parsi religion.
There appears to have been communication between
the Cambay and the Panjab Parsis, as in a.d. 1323 the
former possessed copies of the VencUdad which were
brought from Persia by Mahyar. In the accounts of
Timur's invasion of India we find the Parsis referred