From what started out as a concerned enquiry into the correctness of prayer books, matters have ballooned into unseemly spats ("Errors in Prayer books,” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, February 7, 2016). The explanations of our kusti rite by a teaching priest and Cyrus Meherji were mind-bogglingly appalling.
Why is everything devotional attributed solely to Dastur Adarbad Marespand? Are there no other Sasanian high prelates in Meherji’s ken? No anonymous religiocultural guides from Valakhsh V’s times? No Tosar/Tansar? No Kirdir (the fearsome "improver” of erring priests)? And most missed of all, Weh-Shahpuhr who was made responsible, under Khosro Anoshagruwan/Anushirwan, for the partitioning of religious and related secular texts into the famed 21 Nasks?
The Avestan Vandidad, with its breaks, dislocations, repetitions, was not recited by heart but read entirely out of a book during the midnight to dawn Ushahin gah. Nor was it intended as some kind of code of ritual purity – its nobly stated purpose was to rout the demonic forces that nightly beset mankind. Those who underestimate this purely priest compiled composite text will have missed out on this core purpose. Chapter VIII.7 to end of Chapter IX deal with the cleansing of one contaminated through corpse contact. And everywhere one finds Gatha recitations to counter all evil manifestations. Meherji seems to have bypassed them.
The grossest deception is reserved for his astrological kachubar (mishmash). The equinoctal sun (at the equinox when day and night are equal) last entered the first degree of Aries around 2000 BCE; and exited it in the first century CE. In the current epoch (2000 CE) it is well on its way out of Pisces. Two hundred or so years later it will enter Aquarius. Without entering overmuch into vague calendar issues, it is obvious that the timing of the gahs and gahanbars is hopelessly out of kilter – despite the cautionary notes from the Bundahishn, our prayers are consistently mistimed and wrongly dedicated. When and to whom are Meherji’s vibrations addressed?
Not that any of the above would make sense to those who cannot even describe our Vandidad based kusti prayers, without any Pazand, and have in these columns offered its crassest explanations. Down with mysticism where anything goes, along with its miraculous vibrations and similar nonsense! Let us remain resolutely unmysticized and free of Parsiism’s clap-trap.
FARROKH VAJIFDAR
London, UK
f.vajifdar@btinternet.com