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

38 ATISTORY OF THE PARSTS. [CHAP. I.

was introduced in Gujarat, and he resolved not to sell grain for any other but the new coin; whereupon he was surnamed ‘‘ Enti,” or the obstinate, and the new rupees began to be known in Surat as Entishai rupees.

In an account of the distinguished Parsi families of Surat the Bhavnagris may be mentioned. Jamasji Framji Bhavnagri (1744) was a wealthy “jaghirdar,” and he caused to be built at his own expense a large tank of solid stone for the use of the public at Bhavnagar.

Another very wealthy, influential, and publicspirited citizen of Surat, who deserves mention in these pages, was Nasarvanji Kohiyar, who died in 1797 at the age of eighty. He was the agent of the Dutch factory at Surat, and carried on an extensive business in maritime insurance as the representative in his city of an eminent firm of Bombay merchants. He traded on his own account, among other countries, with Persia, which he twice visited. He was of a deeply religious nature, and his public work, which mostly took a religious form, survives to this day in a fire-temple which he established at Yezd in Persia, and for which he sent the sacred fire all the way from Surat by land, an especially hazardous and dificult undertaking in those days. He endowed this firetemple with “jaghirs,” and instituted in connection with it an annual religious feast which is still known as Kohiyar’s Gahambar. He also built a fire-temple at