A Study of Traditions and Changes of Sacred Fires and Social Structure in Zoroastrian Parsis Community in Navsari, Gujarat, India

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The purpose of this paper is to clarify the traditions and changes of sacred fires and social structure in Zoroastrian Parsis community in Navsari, Gujarat, India in terms of coherence and modification of religious symbols, religious meaning, and social structure..The materials for our study are Zoroastrian Parsis living in Naysari of Gujarat State in the northwestern coast of India.Our main findings are as follows.1 Zoroastrian prayers in Parsi community in Naysari have been changed into manthric recitation. Parsis, Mobed or Behdin, do not know the literal meanings of Zoroastrian prayers.2 The Avestan phrases and sentences of each traditional Zoroastrian prayers have been maintained as they were used to be in ancient times. Even today, ahunavar, ashem vohu and yenghe hatam are said throughout such an old Zoroastrian liturgy as Yasna. These Avestan recitations have been uttered by Mobeds who are qualified to perform religious ceremonies in Zoroastrian communities. Behdins, especially a … More fter they came to entrust Mobeds with religious ceremonies in conformity with their panthak system, did not work on their prayers as they used to in those days.3 The followomgs are the reasons of why the meanings of Zoroastrian most important prayers are not understood or maintained by Parsis in Naysari.1)First, it is because Parsis did not translate their traditional prayers into Gujarati to transmit their meanings from generation to generation.2)Second, it is because Parsis have not been engaged in mission work or have not allowed any conversion to Zoroastrianism.3)Third, it is because Parsi did not carry out a proper religious education even though there had been left sufficient commentaries of Avesta for them to learn the meanings of their prayers and hand them down from generation to generation.The other purpose of this paper is to formulate our working hypotheses for further clarification of some traits of personality structure of religious persons in terms of a religio-psychological view-point.Our working hypothesis for this study is that religious persons show a stronger tendency to inner adjustment in frustrated situations because the religious phenomena are greatly concerned with the conditions of the depth of personality. For an accurate verification of our hypotheses, free association test on stimulus words and T.A.T.type test using photos with various meanings are conducted. Less