Karaka, Dosabhai Framji: History of the Parsis: including their manners, customs, religion and present position ; in two volumes (Band 1) (London, 1884)

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HISTOR Y OF THE PARSIS. [chap. hi.

the better knowledge at the present clay of the
Avesta language, as well as by the deciphering of
Persian coins by European scholars, it has been
ascertained that the Zoroastrian religion acknowledged
intercalation. The Shehenshais were wrong in as
much as since the fall of the Persian empire there
had been no intercalation as was said to have been
the case by their advocates. The assertion of the
Kadmis, supported by the date current among the
Zoroastrians in Persia at the present clay, that no
intercalation took place after the empire passed into
the hands of the Mahomedan, is correct; but they
were wrong in maintaining that intercalation is not
enjoined by the Zoroastrian religion. It appears,
therefore, that in the hot-headed " Kabisa" contro-
versy both parties were in the wrong.

The Gahambars of the Parsis are festivals denoting
the several seasons of the year, and if the Parsi year
began on the clay stated, viz. the 21st of March,
the festivals would take place in the proper seasons
instead of their recurring, as they do at present, out
of their seasons, owing to the intercalation not having
been enforced during the last thirteen hundred years.
The fact is that there was no continuous era in Persia.
Every king calculated his own era from the day of
his accession to the throne, but with this provision,
that if he ascended the throne before the 21st day of
March—the commencement of the solar year—the first