History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

INTRODUCTION. xv

than one eloquent passage of Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. The name Parsi is now identified rather with good citizenship and commercial activity than with the martial and administrative attributes necessary to the supporters of a great empire. My more important task commences in reality with the flight of the Persians from their country, when they abandoned thoughts of dominion sooner than sacrifice their most cherished religious convictions and their independence and self-respect.

The Persian or Parsi fugitives, after undergoing numerous hardships and nearly incurring destruction in a manner which recalls the adventures of Auneas and the surviving Trojans, succeeded in gaining the shores of India, where the rights of shelter and settlement were conceded by a Hindu ruler. Many centuries passed away without an event occurring to find mention in history or to vary the monotony of an agricultural existence. But at last, in the twelfth century, the Mahomedans, different in race but the same in spirit as those who had expelled them from Persia, penetrated into the province of Gujarat, where they had found a place of refuge. In face of this formidable and unexpected danger the Hindu chief collected all his subjects capable of bearing arms, and the Parsis gladly co-operated in the defence of their new home. This event is remarkable as the first occasion after their exile on