आगमे विश्वासटिप्पन्यः

SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY

IN one of the Rivayatst it is said that, if it were impossible, because of poverty, for anyone in a community to found a gahanbar, then all the faithful there should join together to celebrate what the writer calls a ‘gahāmbār-e toji’, to which each should contribute what he could. The literal meaning of tõjī is obscure, but the learned translator of the Rivayat sought to connect the word with one surviving in Persian as tõžī, used for a ‘schoolboys’ picnic’, and with the verb tozīdan in the sense of ’to gather, collect’. Communal celebrations of this kind among the Parsis were described by a European traveller in the eighteenth century; but in Iran by the twentieth century all celebrations during the six great seasonal festivals had come to be endowed, and the term ‘gahambar-e toji’ was then applied there to what for the laity was a very similar observance, that is, an Afrinagan service, with distribution of lurk, or lurk and bread, dedicated either to Ohrmazd or to one of the lesser yazads, and performed at some other time of year as an individual act of piety and charity. Such an observance, which (unlike the seasonal gahambar ceremonies) could be carried out, if wished, after sunset, and in any ‘clean’ place, might be performed only once, or become a regular institution. A gahambar-e toji was seldom endowed, however, and so a different verb was used in its respect: one ‘gave’ a gahambar-e toji, whereas one ‘founded’ a gahambar-e cakhra (in Dari gaambār-e čāra), that is, a true gaham bar which belonged to the cycle of the great six. Small ritual differences existed, moreover, in that the little rounds of bread for consecration belonged only to the major celebrations, while for the humbler gahambar-e toji large rounds were baked as for everyday use, these being easier to make and distribute, and by custom in Sharifabad a blood sacrifice was never made for a gahambar-e toji. The reasons for giving a gahambar-e toji were various. It might

POZYUMRET54 SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY be done simply as an act of worship, or as one of thanksgiving, or of contrition, to atone for some offence which had perhaps been the cause of sickness or misfortune. It was because of celebrations of this third type that the word toji had come to be popularly linked with the Persian verb tozīdan ’to expiate’. Celebrations of the second and third kind were often connected with a vow, taken to perform this ceremony in return for divine favour. A gabambar-e toji was also an essential part of the rite of ’exalting the fire’. Because of the frequency of the celebration firstly of the gahambar-e čakhra (with numerous performances on each of thirty days in the year), and then of the misnamed gahambar-e toji, which was properly simply an Afrinagan or service of blessing’, the term gahambar had come to oust in Sharifabadi and indeed Yazdi) vocabulary that of Afrinagan, and was used generally to refer to any short ‘outer’ service, the standard liturgy being adapted, through different dedications, to a variety of occasions. D. Khodadad, however, often preferred the word jašan for such occasional services, using this in its basic sense of “act of worship’,

The first gahambar-e toji which I myself attended was ia Mazra Kalantar. It had been established by an old farmer, Rustam, and his niece Piruza as an act of worship and charity for the benefit of their souls, and it was celebrated annually in the village square on the first day of the Jašn-e Mihr Ized. This feast fell early in February, and so the celebration took place after sunset to let the men have all the short daylight hours in the fields. That year the night was dark and dank, with some drops of rain, and the carpet for the ceremony was spread under the arched entry of the village water-tank. D. Khodadad could not come from Sharifabad, so the service was conducted, with full ritual, by the dahmobed, with the village school master and the miller sitting beside him on the carpet and also reciting the liturgy. Rustam was seated close by, his fine old face illumined by the fire- and lamp-light, and the other men and boys were packed around them, in the entry and on the steps leading down to the water tank. The women and girls were out in the square, huddled in groups round small fires lit for warmth; and at one of these Piruza with some helpers did the ritual cooking for boy-0 brang, carrying the dishes as they were ready to place them before the dahmobed. At the end of the service the atašband, who had stood as usual to give the ritual signs to the congregation, exchanged a

SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY 55 hand-clasp, with the right hand, with each of the three men on the carpet, and then carried the fire-vessel round for the hamazor. When he reached the edge of the male assembly he handed the vessel over the heads of the last rank to one of the women, who bore it round those in the square. A brimming bowl of food was prepared for the com-e šwa, and lurk was distributed, with a generous triple handful to each of the celebrants, and then the congregation drifted contentedly away into the rainy darkness,

In Sharifabad a similar gahambar-e toji, given purely as an act of worship, was, unusually, endowed, probably because it was linked with the celebration of a gahambar-e čakhra. The foundation had been made some seventy or eighty years earlier by the father of Erdeshir Dabestani, a village schoolmaster; and it was in honour of Shah Varahram Ized. The gahambar-e čakhra, which was generously endowed, with a blood sacrifice, was celebrated on Varabram Ruz of Tir Mah, the fifth day of the fifth gahambar; and on every other Varabram Ruz throughout the year, eleven times in all, a gahambar-e toji with lurk was celebrated at the fire-temple.

Another recurrent gahambar-e toji in the village was linked with the lesser rite of an ‘aš-e khairāt’ or ‘charity pottage’. This observance had been instituted only two years earlier by the parents of a twelve year-old boy, who had fallen backwards down a ganat well. Lines of these wells stretched along by some of the field-paths, and the smooth earth sloped straight down into the well-shaft, and in summer became as hard and slippery as ice. Mercifully the boy fell into deep water in the middle of the stream, missing the stones and clods which might have broken his back, and managed to crawl to one side, barely conscious, from where he was dragged up to safety by his companions. So every month thereafter, in thanksgiving for his escape, his parents distributed an aš-e khairat at the well-mouth, on the day of the accident, except in the ‘beloved months dedicated to fire and the guardian of fire, Azar and Urdibehišt, when instead they gave a gahambar-e toji at the empty Dastur’s House (which was kept for religious observances).4

The gabambar-e toji could on occasion be a communal rite. Thus the Sharifabadis regularly held one whenever a group of them were together at the mountain shrine of Hrišt, each contributing to the lurk for this corporate act of worship (which thus seemed to merit the epithet of toji, properly understood). Similarly an as-e

See further below, p. 119.

56 SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY khairat could be distributed as a communal act. Thus the Sharifa badis all joided together for such an observance on the day after the Jašn-e Mihr Ized. Every family then gave a contribution of corn, lentils, and the like, which they took to the fire-temple. There in the kitchen immense black cauldrons were set on two hearths, and the grain was simmered slowly together with the haunch-bones from the Mihr Ized sacrifices. The cooking began about ten o’clock in the morning. One of the dahmobeds was in charge, armed with a huge ladle lashed to the end of an ash-pole, and two other men with poles stirred the cauldrons. Others kept the wood fires burning brightly, so that it was hot work, even on a February day. People kept coming and going, to bless the work, and there was a constant murmur of Avestan from the hall of the fire-temple. The pottage was ready at about two o’clock, and a good, sustaining brew it was, and through out the afternoon women from the poorer families came in ones and twos with bowls and basins to be filled. The dogs who had been patiently waiting kept the place tidy by licking up every splash of pottage that dropped from the dahmobed’s ladle; and two Moslem beggar-women ate their dole on the spot, in small bowls which they had brought with them.

In the past, Zoroastrian theologians differed as to whether or not it was right to give alms to unbelievers, some holding that to do so was to strengthen Ahriman and the forces of evil, others main taining that one weakened thereby the demons of poverty and hunger; and practice differed also in the twentieth century. In Kerman I had seen food given by Zoroastrians to Moslem beggars, as in Sharifabad; but once I was privileged to attend a big anniversary ceremony at the house of Arbab Shehriar of Nusratabad, where the day’s ceremonies ended with the distribution of an as-e khairat (again cooked in the fire-temple kitchen). Two men ladled it out, and I ventured to ask one of them what he would do if Moslem mendicants appeared, and he replied simply, with a fierce flash in his bright blue eyes, ‘They would not dare! He went on to say that the Nusratabadis never gave alms to Moslems, who (he opined) did nothing to deserve them. The village was a relatively new settle ment, founded about 1880, and probably most of the Zoroastrians who came there did so to escape harsh pressures elsewhere. Even in their new home, however, they suffered much from city roughs

SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY 57 descending on them from Yazd, so that a special fieriness of spirit may well have grown up among them. But indeed it was the charity of the other places which was the more remarkable, in the light of the Zoroastrians’ prolonged sufferings everywhere at Moslem hands.?

The Nusratabadi pottage was made as a charity and yād-būd, in memory of the dead man and for his soul’s sake; and it was distributed to every Zoroastrian house in the village, being carried by boys in basins which were the vaqf property of the fire-temple. These basins they put on pads on their heads, and for some of the smallest of them it was quite a feat balancing the steaming hot vessel, especially as it was a cold winter’s day with a bitter wind blowing to numb their bare hands and feet; but they came and went briskly and cheerfully, for the comforting reward of a bowlful of the pottage when they had done.

A big as-e khairat—on an even larger scale than this one-was distributed every year during the spring No Ruz holiday at the mountain shrine of Pir-e Hrišt, not far from Sharifabad. This was done in fulfilment of a vow by Mihraban Kerbasi of Yazd, who had long been childless. He had solemnly sworn at the shrine that if he were granted a son, he would perform this charitable act there every year; and thereafter, in 1952, his wife bore him a boy, their only child. So each year in the spring Mihraban went with his son to Hrišt to fulfil his vow, and people travelled from Yazd and all the villages to take part in the observance. In 1964 great cauldrons of rice-pottage were cooked and shared among all those present at the shrine, and some was sent for čašni to the Belivanis, and was eaten cold. It tasted good even so, though the wood-smoke flavour was then more pronounced than usual.

Much more commonly an as-e khairat was a small affair, confined to the family and chosen friends and neighbours. If the pottage were distributed as far as three doors away, said D. Khodadad, then this was by definition a “khairat-an act of charity—which benefitted the giver’s soul. The rite was therefore often performed simply to acquire merit, and especially during the ‘beloved’ months of Azar and Urdibehišt, for these were months of yek-e dah when (it was believed) the merit of each good work was multiplied by ten.

..ti

58 SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY When the rite was on a small scale, the preparation and distribution alike of the pottage was left to women, the men’s part being simply to eat a bowlful of it when they came home from their day’s work.

Such small occasional as-e khairat could be held almost anywhere -at the house itself, in the fields, at the door of a shrine, by a stream, or often sar-e kītar ‘at the top of the lane’; and there were a variety of recipes to match the variety of places, although on such modest occasions meat was never an ingredient. The most popular pottage was āš-e hmir dough pottage’ (Persian āš-e rište), for which fine strips of dough (not unlike noodles) were added to a vegetable broth. Then there was wheaten pottage, āš-e gannom, and āš-e kāšk, made with barley, and aš-e šūlī, for which flour was sieved and roasted before being added to the broth. This was cooked especially during the winter months, as it was very satisfying.

On one auspicious day in late April the Belivanis gave a small aš-e khairat in the angle of the lane outside their home. It was a very quiet lane, with only the Rashidis’ house beyond theirs, and Murvarid Khanom was of course among those invited, together with Piruza her sister (D. Khodadad’s wife), three women friends, and their young children. As usual in Sharifabad, the preparations were shared by hostess and guests as a thoroughly enjoyable, sociable part of the proceedings. In mid afternoon a fire was lit in the lane and a big covered pot full of water was set on it. The dough, already mixed, was carried out there, and the first of the guests arrived, bearing sweetmeats and marjoram, which she distributed among us, and also half a bowl of sieved flour, which she emptied on a clean white cloth spread on the ground. The other guests did the same in their tum, and a merry group formed round the cloth and worked as a team, kneading the dough, rolling bits of it out flat with long slim rolling-pins, iouring the pieces with the guests’ fine flour, and cutting them into thin strips. During this process the small boys begged for bits of dough, and, wrapping them round peeled sticks, cooked them at the fire to still the pangs of hunger as they waited, while Parizad, D. Khodadad’s elder daughter, played the tambourine and there was singing. Meantime a big beetroot had been sliced into the simmering pot, to be followed by several pounds of beans and chickpeas, and a bowlful of fried onions seasoned with pepper, salt, and saffron. When these were all well cooked, the strips of dough were added, and in about five minutes the pottage was ready, and was eaten merrily round the fire just before the sun went down.

SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIĘTY AND CHARITY 59 Bowlfuls of the pottage were given to the guests to take home for the men of their families, and when the pot had been emptied, a candle was lit on each side of the cooking-fire, and Parizad performed the curious little rite of ‘Nakhod-e mošgel-gošāy’, while the Rashidis’ pretty little speckled hens, let out for the purpose, pecked up every bit of flour or spilt pottage around us. Then Piruza, Agha Rustam’s daughter, collected in a brazier the embers of the cooking-fire (which by this rite had become yeste, consecrated) and took them to the fire-temple. There we found D. Khodadad and Rustan the atašband seated in the hall reciting the evening prayers, their tenor and baritone voices blending pleasantly. Piruza put her little brazier on the pillar-altar there, and Rustam rose in silence and with a : bara (a metal implement consisting of a flat disc on a long handle) transferred part of the embers from it to a big vase, already nearly full of embers from other consecrated fires, which was standing on the altar. Then, the sun having set, D. Khodadad rose in his turn, took a single bara-ful of embers from this vessel, and carried it into the sanctuary, where he laid it on the ash at the rim of the sacred fire itself, before performing the evening boy ceremony, with ringing of the sanctuary bell. While we waited and watched, a youth and two young boys came in to say their evening prayers.

An aš-e khairat was frequently given in this simple fashion to invoke divine blessings for some special undertaking, as when some one was setting out on a journey; and one was often held to celebrate a young child’s birthday. Agha Rustam’s little son Shahvahram, a sweet-tempered and delightful baby, as fair-skinned and blue-eyed as a northerner, had his first birthday in May of 1964, and an as-e khairat was prepared in the house with the aid of a throng of affectionate relatives and friends, who as they arrived scattered their marjoram leaves over his small green bonnet. This time a barley pottage was cooked, and since the cooking was done indoors there was dancing as well as singing by the girls. The final ritual was exactly the same, with candles lit each side of the hearth-fire, the recital of Nakhod-e mošgel-gošay, and the carrying of embers to the fire-temple, for these were fixed elements in offering a domestic aš-e khairat.

Just as the aš-e khairat could be a separate act (as on these occa sions), or form part of a more elaborate observance, so too the ritual of Nakhod-e mošgel-gošay ’the difficulty-resolving peas’, although

60 SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY essential to it, could also be performed separately, and very often was. This was purely a matter for women, and being very simple was a rite which even the poorest widow could afford to carry out. All that was needed for it was a handful of chickpeas, as they had been brought in from the fields, although the more affluent would make this a bowlful, and often mix raisins with the peas. The rite could, like an aš-e khairat, be performed anywhere, and the first time that I was aware of it in all its details was when it was done by Agha Rustam’s elder sister Banu (who lived in Yazd) at the shrine of Hrišt. She climbed the hill to the shrine accompanied by her sisters Piruza and Murvarid, and her nieces Shahnaz and Piruza (Agha Rustam’s daughters). She spread out a kerchief full of peas and raisins in the shrine’s porch, and began, with Shahnaz’s help, the tedious everyday task of picking out the chaff which was mixed with them. As she did so, she told a long, rambling tale about a poor wood-gatherer and his beautiful daughter. In the beginning, the story ran, these two were so sunk in poverty that the father despaired; but one night three beings clad in green appeared to him in a dream, and bade him buy chickpeas and tell his story and do good (that is, give away the peas in charity), and then they would make him rich. He did as they told him, grew wealthy, and went on pilgrimage, exhorting his daughter not to neglect the rite while he was away; but she, though meaning well, forgot. She met a princess, was be friended by her, but was subsequently suspected of stealing her jewels and was imprisoned. The father, returning, chided his daughter, performed the rite again, and then, with divine aid, established her innocence. She was pardoned by the king, who betrothed her in marriage to his only son, and she never thereafter forgot to perform the rite at frequent intervals.

All the time that Banu was telling this story (familiar to the others in every detail), her niece Piruza kept up a constant encouraging stream of Bale, bale, ‘Yes, yes’, as is required by the rite, while once Shahnaz reminded her of a sentence she had forgotten. When the story was finished, the elder Piruza took over with a soft murmur of Avestan, until the peas were judged to be perfectly clean. Then they were carried into the shrine, and a handful was scattered over the sacred rock. What remained was distributed in handfuls, with a murmured blessing, to each person present in the shrine or met on the way down the hill. In Sharifabad itself the initial rite was per formed anywhere-at home or in the lanes and then a handful of

SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY 61 peas would be taken to one of the shrines and left on its pillar-altar, and the rest distributed to companions or people met along the way. Since the rite ended with Avestan (any Avestan prayer was accept able), the peas were consecrated, yešte, and so to eat them conferred a blessing. Anyone might eat those which were left at a shrine. This humble little observance embodied admirably the Zoroastrian ethic that man must care for his fellow man, and that charity to others is needful before one can look for divine help oneself. Poverty in Iranian villages naturally did not await the coming of Islam, and the observance seems to be an old one, since a similar rite, with an identical story, was carried out by Parsi women in their traditional centres.

Men, too, naturally sometimes felt the need to make some small special act of thanksgiving or intercession, and then they would usually go to the fire-temple or a shrine, light candles, offer incense, and pray. Thus Isfandiar of Mazras Kalantar told me how one summer’s day when he was cycling home from the fields with a load of cucumbers on his back he in his turn slipped on the edge of a qanat well and fell in, bicycle and all; but he was as lucky as the Sharifabadi boy, since he landed in the dry water-course with the cucumbers underneath him and the machine on top, so only the fruits were seriously hurt. There was a shrine close by, and as soon as he had recovered he made haste to light candles and make offerings there in thanksgiving for his escape. Men also on occasion offered the costly blood sacrifice, when the boon they sought seemed a great one, or they had much reason for thankfulness. The Sharif abadis usually made this offering at one of the mountain shrines, and the rite will be considered in detail in the chapter concerning them. One time when I was present at such an offering made as an in dividual act, independent of any major observance, was when D. Khodadad’s son-in-law Kaus, who lived in Tehran, had injured his right wrist, so that he could not work. He offered a pure white goat (carefully chosen for its colour) at the shrine of Hrišt, with a prayer for healing. This too was a family observance, to which men and women alike were invited from three or four of the extended family group. Some of the meat was eaten at the shrine, and the rest was brought back to the village to be shared among other relatives and

Information from Mrs. Khorshed Daruwala, formerly of Aden, where many traditional ways were preserved in isolation. She translated the Parsi version of the story for me from a Gujarati Khorda Avesta.

62 SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY friends, and sent as additional ‘khairat to the community officials (the atašband and others). A gahambar-e toji with lurk was solen nized at the shrine itself.

Women seldom made an animal sacrifice, unless jointly with their husbands, but there were some elaborate minor observances carried out by women alone, at which hens were offered up. One of the main authorities in the village for the exact performance of such rites was Shirin-e Set Hakemi, who in 1964 was well over a hundred years old, and had outlived not only her husband and all her ten children, but her grandchildren as well. She moved bent double, like the conventional image of a witch, but with an effort could straighten herself briefly and regard one with great dark eyes, set in what had clearly once been a beautiful face. She spoke only Dari, and could neither read nor write, but her memory was capaci ous and clear, and she possessed a wealth of knowledge about old ways, and about these semi-secret observances performed by women for their own especial needs. Of her deep, sincere piety there was no doubt-a fact which one had to reconcile as best one could with the nature of some of these rites, which seemed purely magical in character. Several of them centred on setting out on a cloth or sopra (Persian sofre) a variety of objects and foodstuffs in honour of some supernatural being, the rite being called accordingly the Sopra of So-and-so. One of them, performed to get relief from illness or pain, was the Sopra-ye Sabzi, ‘The Green One’s Cloth’. The sufferer and the wise woman who helped her had to prepare this cloth together in unbroken silence, and no one must intrude on them, or the person below the earth’ (ādam-e šĪw-zwīn) would not accept their offerings. Further, no inscribed vaqf vessels might be used on the cloth, no iron or salt was to be placed there, no Avestan might be uttered, nor the name of God invoked. After the cloth was fully prepared, with the sacrifice of a black hen, the sick woman lay down beside it, and the helper covered her with a green covering, scattered marjoram leaves over her, and withdrew. She had to sleep there alone all night, and on rising must break her silence by invoking ‘Shāh Parī and the daughter of Shāh Pari’, and then taste a little of every thing on the cloth.

The rite itself thus seemed thoroughly irreligious, with every care being taken to do nothing which might drive away the evil powers; for ‘Shah Pari’ was conceived as a heartless and capricious creature, able to help, but given also to such malicious pranks as

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SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY 63 stealing a baby that was left alone and leaving a miserable changeling in its place. Yet the intention of the rite itself was innocent, to obtain help for an illness which would not yield to medicine; and in each case described to me the trouble seemed psychosomatic, and was cured by the site. The woman or girl, that is, had become unex pectedly ‘unclean’ in a holy place, and was so oppressed by the burden of her sin that she became really ill and needed something more than physicking to help her recover. There were priestly rites available, lo but the old wives’ ones sometimes seemed more effica cious to the troubled women. Moreover, care was taken to limit any maligni effects of practising them. Thus when the Sopra-ye Sabzi . was concluded, the priest was asked to come to the house to pray. Further, the seven silver coins that had been placed inside the roasted hen on the cloth must be used to buy oil for sanctuary-lamps, the eggs and white cheese from the corners of the cloth must be given to the poor, and the rest of the food must be shared hospitably with whoever came to the house.

Such pious conclusions to the rite did not mollify the elders of Sharifabad, who were strongly opposed to such dubious practices; but a problem which confronted them in any rituals devoted to ‘Shah Pari’ was the identity of this supernatural figure. On the one hand, there was Shah Pari the stealer of infants, who was clearly queen of the malicious pairikās of the Avesta, shameless servants of the Evil One, with whom one should have no dealings. On the other hand, ‘Pari’ was regarded as an abbreviation of the name of Paridon or Pariyon, the Avestan Thraētaona (Persian Faridun), who was endowed with powers of healing, and whom Zoroastrian priests regularly invoke, with a special Avestan prayer, for help in times of sickness. Between wise woman and priest the invocations of pairika and semi-divine physician appeared by the twentieth century to have become inextricably confused. D. Khodadad himself ex plained to me that Shah Pari was a benign being, a ferešte (angel), not like the many wicked pairikas. Shirin too and the other village women were positive that Shah Pari was male, but said that he had two daughters, one clad in white, the other in green, thus linking him with the female paris. Because of such developments, the dubious cult of Shah Pari was difficult to check, and it had indeed received a great stimulus through apparently miraculous happenings in the twentieth century at the village of Kuče Buyuk, not far from Yazd.

. 10 See pp. 208–10.

.64 SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY Here there lived a very kind, good, religious woman named Mihrbanu. As a fourteen-year-old orphan she had been married to a man of sixty, and her sorrows were increased when the first two sons she bore him died. The third child, also a boy, was only six months old, and ailing, when her husband too died. She was in despair when she dreamt that two women, the daughters of Shah Pari, came to her and offered to care for the child as Shah Pari’s son, if when he grew up he would perform charitable acts and do good, which Mihrbanu gladly undertook on his behalf. Further, they said, she was to set apart a room in her house as belonging to them, and lay a Sopra-ye Shah Pari in it regularly. In the morning she found the baby actually sitting up sturdily, in perfect health. She duly swept and garnished a room for her visitants, and latched its door, but the door at once flew off the latch, and thereafter she never could fasten it herself. But other, invisible, hands opened or shut it, and sometimes a lamp was mysteriously lit there, and every month she set out in it a Sopra ye Shah Pari.

The boy, generally known as Sohrab-e Shah Pari, throve, went to Bombay, and prospered there; and he sent back money to adorn the room. Mihrbanu had a pillar-altar built in it, and a water-tank beside the house, for the use of the whole village; and the monthly observance of the Sopra became famous, so that not only women seeking sons, or cures for illness, flocked there, but men too came, among them well-to-do and respected citizens of Yazd, who offered sheep and goats, so that the rites became more and more elaborate. (The men were not admitted to the inner rite, but met in the court yard to make their offerings and vow their vows.) On one day in the year, that of the original miracle, the setting-out of the cloth was particularly lavish, and the throng of people grew to be so great that the Kuče Buyuk elders (not wholly approving) protested, and this special observance was abandoned, the cloth being set out there after in the same way each month.

The observance of a Sopra-ye Shah Pari, although it became prominent through Mihrbanu, did not originate with her, but seems to have been of some antiquity; and, unlike the Sopra-ye Sabzi, it was admitted within the orbit of the faith. Thus, as old Shirin affirmed, Avestan belonged to the rite, with the košti-prayers, and iron and salt might be put on the cloth. A woman would vow to set out the Sopra in the hope of divine help, and she must then do $0 monthly for the first year, and thereafter usually annually. Thus

…….

SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY 65 another Shirin from Cham, whom I met when she came to Sharif abad for no-swa, told me that her grandmother had begun a Sopra-ye Shah Pari in order to be blessed with children. She herself had learnt from her the story of Shah Pari (different, she said, from the one Mihrbanu told at her Sopra). She then offered a Sopra in her turn for the boon of a happy marriage, which was granted her; but when she went with her husband to Tehran she abandoned the rite, mainly because of practical difficulties (such as keeping a special room for it in the house). However, when two years previously she became very ill, she began it again, was cured, and thereafter maintained it annually, and also lit candles in the room on holy days.

The first Sopra-ye Shah Pari (as far as was known) ever to be prepared in orthodox Sharifabad had been instituted only a few years earlier by Khorshed Kausi, after she had borne seven daughters. She went to Kuče Buyuk, made an offering at Mihrbanu’s Sopra, and vowed to prepare one herself for the boon of a son. The next year a son, Khodadad, “Given by God’, was duly born to her; and she in her turn dreamt that night that a sumptuously clad man Shah Pari himself-appeared to her, and said that he would come each month as the guest of Khodadad, and that such-and-such a room should be set apart for him. In her dream he led her to this room; and the next morning she found that an unfinished piece of cloth on the loom outside was fully woven. So on that day, Zamyad Ruz, in each month throughout the first year, Khorshed prepared the Sopra, inviting friends to the rite; and at the end of the year she sacrificed a sheep, and there was great rejoicing. Thereafter she spread the Sopra annually, and declared that she would sacrifice another sheep when Khodadad (then a handsome five-year-old) was fully grown. (Khorshed’s husband had died three months after Khodadad was born, and of her daughters six had married and left the village, one to live in Bombay, the other five in Tehran, so only Golchihr remained to help her mother in the home, and with the annual observance.)

Piruza Belivani had represented her mother Tahmina at the in auguration of the Sopra, and in 1964 she went again, taking me with her at Khorshed’s kind invitation. The night before, Khorshed had put steel into a bowl of water, with marjoram leaves; and that morning she had bathed and remained fasting. The floor of the little, windowless room devoted to Shah Pari was almost wholly covered with white plaster, and on this, having said the košti-prayers,

66 SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY she laid a snow-white cloth. There was a mirror at the back, two candles on whitewashed bricks, fresh greenery, and rose-water in a glass flagon. Three tall sugar-cones were covered by green silk handkerchiefs, and one bore an old-fashioned silver bridal ornament over the handkerchief, another a gilt chain. There was every other possible white thing on the cloth, from a little saucer full of gypsum to white cheese, sweetmeats, milk, cooked rice, peeled almonds, and salt. There were fruits, cut open, in abundance, and a pome granate with a silver coin stuck in it. There was wine and vinegar, nuts, raisins, herbs, melon, and sunflower-seeds. Towards the front of the cloth was a big silvery tray, and each guest brought with her dried peas for Nakhod-e mošgel-gošay, and poured them on to it. All brought candles too, and lit them on the floor in front of the cloth, so that the room grew very bright; and each, having lit her candle, said the košti-prayers. Other gifts, as well as the peas, were brought to be put on the cloth, and some offered hens, which were duly sacrificed in the yard. The additional cooking for boy-o-brang was noodle-pottage, bread, and the essential sirog and eggs, and some of these things, as they were cooked, were brought to the cloth with the hens, roasted and stuffed with rice and seven kinds of spices, Many other cooked dishes were set out there already, carefully prepared the day before.

Meanwhile those in Shah Pari’s room continued to recite Avestan till all had assembled, at about noon. Then the tray with its mound of chickpeas was lifted off the cloth and put on the floor, and everyone sat in a circle round it. A young girl poured pure water into a copper bowl, and sprinkled marjoram leaves on it; and throughout the recitation which followed she and two other little girls beat on this copper bowl with sticks. (One of the three was Paridun Rashidi’s pretty little daughter Keshwar, a six-year-old.) Khorshed herself sat with the big mirror from the cloth in her hands, and gazing into it told three stories in succession, while the rest were at work clean ing the peas. The first story was that of Nakhod-e mošgel-gošay itself, the second that of Shah Pari, and the third an account of her own vow and its happy consequences. The story of Shah Pari was another rambling folk-tale, and neither in this Sharifabadi version nor in that told in Kuče Buyuk had it anything to do with Paridon/ Thraetaona, or any marked ethical content, Shah Pari appearing in it as a strange, capricious being. After the three stories were told, Khorshed prayed softly in Avestan until the peas were finished,

SOME INDIVIDUAL RITES OF PIETY AND CHARITY 67 Then she rose and, taking the copper bowl, carried it round the company, putting a spoonful of the water into the cupped hands of each person. Finally, she sprinkled some of the peas on the cloth, between the many dishes, and gave a handful to everyone present.

The little room had grown very hot, with the burning candles and so many of us packed into it; and the rite being finished, the company adjourned to the courtyard for singing and dancing, and some cheer ful mime, with Parizad, the Dastur’s daughter, dressed as a man, and another girl as a fashionable Tehrani woman, in short sleeveless dress, looking startlingly immodest in that village setting. Then the midday meal was eaten, and the company broke up with many expressions of gratitude and goodwill. Some went into Shah Pari’s room to take their leave, much to the disapproval of an older woman, who pointed out to me that they were dast-prangīn, that is, they had not washed their hands after eating, and so were in no fit state to enter a holy place. The next day D. Khodadad was asked to the house to pray, and recited the Ahunavad Gah beside the Sopra; and this concluded the ceremony for that year,

Although the Sharifabadi elders looked askance even at the Sopra-ye Shah Pari, as an unnecessary rite outside the mainstream of orthodox observance, it is readily understandable why their womenfolk, suffering from two great pressures—the need to bear sons and to keep the purity laws—should have sought help in diverse ways when they failed under either. There were other small rites performed by men and women, even in Sharifabad, to avert evil or to obtain good, which belonged, like the Sopra-ye Sabzi, to folklore and magic rather than to religion; but in the main it was a matter for admiration how well the villagers upheld the basic principles of their faith, in worshipping only God the Creator and his ministers. While doing so they sought also to do good to their fellows, so that a spirit of kindliness and charity informed their minor as well as their major observances.

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