The prayers I was taught as a child in the very ancient Avestan language (sister to Vedic Sanskrit) and in Pazand — which had to be learned by heart before my navjote ceremony — have now taken on a deeper meaning and significance. Today I concentrate more and more on the meaning of the words that I am uttering. And I can truly say that I enjoy reciting them and feel uplifted and protected by an inner courage that comes with understanding.
When I see my community members fighting and quarreling over the most unimportant and insignificant aspects of rituals and customs I feel like shaking them awake. "Open your eyes, understand what you mumble at breakneck speed to get it over with and feel virtuous about at the same time! You are like the karapans, ‘mumbler’ priests whom Zarathushtra warned against, priests who brought discord and disharmony to the community.”
When one reads the Jasa Me Avangahe Mazda prayer one is struck by the second verse: "Aastuye daenaam vanguhim, Mazdayasnim, Fraspaayokhedram, nidhaasnaithishem, Khetvadhataamashounim” which Dr Irach Taraporewala translates as "I solemnly dedicate myself to the excellent religion of Mazda worship which removes quarrels (fraspaayokhedram), which causes swords to be sheathed (nidhaasnaithishem), which teaches self-sacrifice (Khetvadhataamashounim) and which leads to righteousness (ashounim).”
Taraporewala, in his footnotes in Zoroastrian Daily Prayers, writes: "Righteousness, or what we Parsis call Ashoi, is far deeper than mere ‘purity.’ The word Asha of the Avesta is a very ancient word and scholars have equated it with the Vedic Ruta; and both the words have to be taken in the highest spiritual sense possible. The nearest English equivalent is righteousness used in the sense in which it is found in the Bible. It represents the eternal law of truth, the one great spiritual law. The best definition of Asha is contained in the beautiful lines of poet Alfred Lord Tennyson: ‘That God, which ever lives and loves,/ One God one law, one element,/ And one far off divine event,/ To which the whole creation moves.’”
When I read the Srosh Baj, the concept of Srosh, divine intuition or the "still small voice of God” within us, leaps out of the prayer — clear and illuminating. "Holy Word Incarnate (Tanumaathrahe) is the special epithet of Srosh — naturally following from the literal meaning of his name, obedience to God’s will as embodied in the holy word.”
Tanumaathrahe has also been translated as one "with body steeped in religious lore” (mathra/mantra), by Framroz Rustomjee, in his Daily Prayers of the Zoroastrians. I love his translation of the word.
In the Srosh Baj, in verse 7, occur the words, Aojas and Zavarecha, the strength and power of Srosh, which are to be revered; and suddenly the Sanskrit word Ojaswin becomes clear to me. Our shared Indo-Iranian heritage begins to enrich my understanding of the prayers that I have so often recited without pondering over their meanings. ABAN MUKHERJI
mukherji.aban@gmail.com