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

CHAP. V. | SPIRIT OF TOLERANCE. 227

but in India the Parsis became a most tolerant people and never attempted to do anything of the kind. Even the idea of doing so can hardly have presented itself to their minds. As a nation, they had no power, and when they came to India they naturally considered that the religion professed by the people of that country was as dear to them as their own was to themselves. They had not forgotten how the gross outtage on their own religion by others had pained them, and therefore they never interfered with the religion of any different sect, nor did they do anything to wound the religious feelings or susceptibilities of others. When they came into contact with the Mahomedans they did not regard them with hatred, but were always disposed to live peaceably with them. After the fall of the Persian empire thousands of the Zoroastrians in Persia must have preferred the fate of the sword to losing their “kusti,” but happily in India there had been nothing approaching a cruel or harsh religious persecution of them beyond certain disabilities which might be expected from Mahomedan rule or Mahomedan teaching, and the first and the only instance of which we can find record of a Parsi having sacrificed his life as a religious martyr occurred at Broach in the year 1702. One Kamaji Homaji! * The memory of Kamaji Homaji is held in great veneration in

Broach even at this day, and benedictions are pronounced upon his name in all religious ceremonies by the priests of the place,