This document discusses the cultural identity and assimilation of Parsis in India. The Parsis are descendants of Zoroastrians who migrated to India from Iran in the 8th century to escape religious persecution. While in India, the Parsis integrated into local culture by adopting the Gujarati language and other customs, but also preserved key aspects of their Zoroastrian religious identity and practices, such as maintaining separate fire temples. Over time, the Parsis evolved a distinct ethnic identity as a minority group in India, facing new challenges to their cultural survival in modern times due to declining population.

1. Natasha Gupta

2. 
Culture
The shared
beliefs, values,
traditions, and
behavior patterns
of particular
groups. (Taylor et
al., 2012)

3. 
The Self
The self is first
and foremost the
collection of
beliefs that we
hold about
ourselves (Taylor
et al., 2012)

4. Sources of Self Knowledge
Self-
Knowledge
Socializati
on
Reflected
Appraisal
Feedback
from
others
Self-
Perception
Labeling
Arousal
States
Environm
ental
Distinctive
ness
Comparati
ve self-
assessmen
ts
Social
Identity
Culture

5. 
Social Identity
 The “part of an individual’s
self-concept which derives
from the membership in a
social group together with
the value and emotional
significance attached to that
membership” (Tajfel, 1981).
 Bicultural competence –
Individuals may be able to
gain competence within two
cultures without losing
cultural identity and
without having to choose
one culture over the other.

6. 
Parsis : Who are they?
 Maro Dikra
 Ideal next door elderly
neighbour in Bollywood
movies
 From Pre-Islamic
Zoroastrian Iran
 Descendants of migrated
Iranian Zoroastrians
 Parsis – Zoroastrians of
India

7. 
Parsis : Who are they?
 Arrived in 8th Century BC
 Hesitantly welcomed by local
Hindu ruler of Gujarat – Jadi
Rana
 Conditions attached to their
settlement
• Explain their religion
• Adopt the local language
• Lay down their weapons
• Parsi women to give up their
traditional dress for the Indian
saree
• Conduct marriage ceremonies
after sunset
 Cultural Assimilation

8. 
Preserving Identity
while Integration
 Their arrival posed the
question of how the
minority would
integrate itself in the
new environment while
retaining the essence of
its identity
 Traditional narratives
relate the process of
assimilation and
acculturation

9. 
Temple Worship
 Rise of temple-worship in
India
 Indian social and
religious environment
influenced the nature of
Parsi temple worship
 But, the Parsis
safeguarded their
practices
 Fire temples reserved
exclusively for the Parsis

10. 
Towers of Silence
 First Dakhma built at
Broach
 The dakhma is a circular,
roofless walled structure,
enclosing a central well,
built to consign the bodies
of the deceased to be
devoured by vultures and
carrion crows or
dessicated by the sun
 Parsis retained and
elaborated this practice
known to them from Iran

11. 
Purity Laws
 Purity laws ecompassed rules for
the protection of the ritually pure
from defilement, and purification
following contamination and
pollution.
 Parsis observed the protection and
purification of metal, earth, water,
fire, plants, and animals, as well as
the rules regarding personal
conduct and purity in daily life.
 The Parsis remained doctrinally
orthodox while adaptive in their
ritual observance.
 Over time, many of the purity laws
were looked on more as ideals than
as practical observances.

12. 
Secluding women
during menstruation
 Continued the practice of
secluding women during
their menstrual period
 Place of menstruating
women – Dashtanestan
 Purification required of
those who came in contact
 Observed until 19th
century by Orthodox
Parsis

13. 
Dietary Laws
 Divided living creatures
into good and evil
 There were khrafstra or
‘noxious’ creatures and
their destruction was
considered religiously
meritorious among
Zoroastrians
 Parsis gradually
eliminated their killing
 Maintained the theoretical
between creatures and
evil

14. 
Barashnom Ceremony
 Greatest pollution resulted from contact
with nasa (carrion of dead bodies)
 Barashnom ceremony-the most elaborate
Zoroastrian ritual purification
 Intended for the physical removal of
extreme forms of pollution
 Process of reintegration undergone in order
to renew contact with other Zoroastrians
 Barashnom-e noh-shab or ‘ablution of the
nine nights’, consisted of a Parsi undergoing
successive ritual cleansings in retreat for the
nights in a secluded pit or area.
 Ceremony simplified and over time seen as
a ceremony reserved predominantly if not
exclusively for the priesthood.
 The Riman ritual effectively superseded the
Barashnom ceremony
 Eliminated the nine days and nights retreat
in favour of an individual ritually
traversing nine enclosure or ‘pure’ spaces
within a short period of time.

15. 
Veneration of Cows and
Bulls
 Sacrifice of certain animals
performed in Iran was
abandoned in India.
 Parsis increasingly venerated the
cow and bull, and employed the
latter in certain rites.
 The use of ritual cleansing and
ablutionary agents such as bull’s
urine and hairs and ash from
sacred fires has an ancient history
among the Indo-Iranian peoples.
 The use of the varasyo or white
bull was also unique to the Parsis,
and had an important role in the
development of priestly power in
India.

16. 
Language
 Parsis increasingly
employed Gujarati words
or unique Parsi
renderings to Zoroastrian
ceremonies, and
reassigned the names of
ceremonies common to
the Parsi and Iranian
communities, thereby
distinguishing their
understanding of the
ceremonies from that of
the Iranian community.

17. 
Endogamy
 Reaffirmed endogamy as a means of
safeguarding identity
 Parsis free to define their sense of
group identity without fear of external
threat.
 The caste customs and social
structures of the Indian society,
theoretically, constrained the ability of
Parsis to intermarry with members of
other communities.
 Parsis came to define themselves as a
non-proselytizing community.
 Parsis of India evolved a strict
endogamy along religious and ethnic
lines.
 Religious identity as a Zoroastrian
and ethnic identity as a Parsi became
synonymous.

18. 
Minority within
Cultural Diversity
 1,10,000 Parsis all over the
world
 Less than 70,000 in India
 Ethnic anxiety
 Marginalization within
cultural hybridity
 Decline in membership
 Problems regarding final
rites due to decline in
vultures and
unavailability of Towers
of Silence
 “They feel insecure,
experience identity crisis and
feel threatened by possible
submersion in the dominant
Hindu culture. The factors
which contribute to ethnic
atrophy are the Parsis’ single
minded pursuit of prosperity,
extreme individualism, craze
for urbanization, late
marriages, low birth rate, the
rather high incidence of
cancer, Alzheimers disease,
osteoporosis, mental illness,
and low fertility rate”
(Dharan 2001)

19. 
Nevertheless, successful
 “In numbers Parsis are
beneath contempt, but
in contribution, beyond
compare.” – Mahatma
Gandhi

20. 
 Writer, R. (1989). Parsi Identity. Iran, 27, 129–131.
http://doi.org/10.2307/4299826
 Deshmukh, S. (2014). Ethnic Angst: A Comparative
Study of Bapsi Sidhwa & Rohinton Mistry. Partridge
Publishing
 Palsetia, J.S. (2001). The Parsis of India: Preservation
of Identity in Bombay City. Vol 17. BRILL Publishing
References