page_title: Parsis
section_title: Definition and identity
hierarchical_section_title: Parsis / Definition and identity
context_page_description: Parsis or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group who migrated to the Indian subcontinent from Persia during the Muslim conquest of Persia of CE 636–651; one of two such groups. Zoroastrianism is the ethnic religion of the Parsi people. According to the Qissa-i Sanjan, Parsis migrated from the Sasanian Empire to Gujarat, where they were given refuge, between the 8th and 10th century CE to avoid persecution following the Muslim conquest of Persia.
  At the time of the Muslim conquest of Persia, the dominant religion of the region was Zoroastrianism. Iranians such as Babak Khorramdin rebelled against Muslim conquerors for almost 200 years. During this time many Iranians chose to preserve their religious identity by fleeing from Persia to India.
  The word پارسیان, pronounced "Parsian", i.e., "Parsi" in the Persian language, literally means Persian. Note that Farsi is an Arabization of the word Parsi, which is used as an endonym of Persian, and the Persian language is spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and some other regions of the former Persian Empire.
context_section_description: According to the Encyclopædia Britannica,
  Parsi, also spelled Parsee, member of a group of followers in India of the Persian prophet Zoroaster. The Parsis, whose name means "Persians", are descended from Persian Zoroastrians who emigrated to India to avoid religious persecution by the Muslims. They live chiefly in Mumbai and in a few towns and villages mostly to the south of Mumbai, but also a few minorities nearby in Karachi (Pakistan) and Chennai. There is a sizeable Parsee population in Pune as well in Bangalore. A few Parsee families also reside in Kolkata and Hyderabad. Although they are not, strictly speaking, a caste, since they are not Hindus, they form a well-defined community. The exact date of the Parsi migration is unknown. According to tradition, the Parsis initially settled at Hormuz on the Persian Gulf but finding themselves still persecuted they set sail for India, arriving in the 8th century. The migration may, in fact, have taken place as late as the 10th century, or in both. They settled first at Diu in Kathiawar but soon moved to South Gujarāt, where they remained for about 800 years as a small agricultural community.
  The term Pārsi, which in the Persian language is a demonym meaning "inhabitant of Pārs" and hence "ethnic Persian", is not attested in Indian Zoroastrian texts until the 17th century. Until that time, such texts consistently use the Persian-origin terms Zartoshti "Zoroastrian" or Vehdin "[of] the good religion". The 12th-century Sixteen Shlokas, a Sanskrit text in praise of the Parsis, is the earliest attested use of the term as an identifier for Indian Zoroastrians.
  The first reference to the Parsis in a European language is from 1322, when a French monk, Jordanus, briefly refers to their presence in Thane and Bharuch. Subsequently, the term appears in the journals of many European travelers, first French and Portuguese, later English, all of whom used a Europeanized version of an apparently local language term. For example, Portuguese physician Garcia de Orta observed in 1563 that "there are merchants ... in the kingdom of Cambaia ... known as Esparcis. We Portuguese call them Jews, but they are not so. They are Gentios." In an early 20th-century legal ruling (see self-perceptions, below), Justices Davar and Beaman asserted (1909:540) that "Parsi" was also a term used in Iran to refer to Zoroastrians. notes that in much the same way as the word "Hindu" was used by Iranians to refer to anyone from the Indian subcontinent, "Parsi" was used by the Indians to refer to anyone from Greater Iran, irrespective of whether they were actually ethnic Persian people. In any case, the term "Parsi" itself is "not necessarily an indication of their Iranian or 'Persian' origin, but rather as indicator – manifest as several properties – of ethnic identity". Moreover, if heredity were the only factor in a determination of ethnicity, the Parsis would count as Parthians according to the Qissa-i Sanjan.
  The term "Parseeism" or "Parsiism" is attributed to Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron, who in the 1750s, when the word "Zoroastrianism" had yet to be coined, made the first detailed report of the Parsis and of Zoroastrianism, therein mistakenly assuming that the Parsis were the only remaining followers of the religion.
  In addition to above, the term "Parsi" existed even before they moved to India:
  The earliest reference to the Parsis is found in the Assyrian inscription of Shalmaneser III (circa 854-824 BC).
  Darius the Great (521-486 BC) establishes this fact when he records his Parsi ancestry for posterity, “parsa parsahya puthra ariya ariyachitra”, meaning, “a Parsi, the son of a Parsi, an Aryan, of Aryan family (Inscription at Naqsh-i-Rustam, near Persepolis, Iran).
  In Outlines of Parsi History, Dasturji Hormazdyar Dastur Kayoji Mirza, Bombay 1987, pp. 3-4 writes, “According to the Pahlavi text of Karnamak i Artakhshir i Papakan, the Indian astrologer refers to Artakhshir (Sasanian king, and the founder of the Empire) as khvatay parsikan ‘the king of the Parsis’.
  Herodotus and Xenophon, the two great hi
caption: Parsis from India, c. 1870
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