ZOROASTRIANISM
SAN JOSE, CA, USA
Monday April 5, 1993
San Jose Mercury News, Page 1
     [Reproduced without permission]

_3,700-year tradition still glows - 
           'Assimilation in U.S. threatens ancient Zoroastrian religion'_

By Jeanne Huber, Mercury News Staff Writer

   HIGH ON A HILLSIDE above San Jose, flames leap up 24 hours a day from a
gleaming brass urn in a temple - one of only four in the United States -
dedicated to one of the world's most ancient religions.

   With the flames go the prayers of about 1,200 Bay Area Zoroastrians that
their faith will survive this land.

   "There is a fear - a real fear, too," said Silloo Tarapore of Lafayette.
"We have one generation to do it or to die."

   Many immigrant groups struggle to maintain an identity in a strange land.
But for Zoroastrians, it is an especially poignant concern.

   Their religion has been around for perhaps 3,700 years, a heritage so deep
it scarcely seems comprehensible in a state where "historical sites" are
sometimes less than 100 years old.  It was the religion of the great Persian
Empire under kings Cyrus and Darius.  And tradition says that when Christ
was born about 500 years later, he was honored by a visit from three
Zoroastrian priests, the Magi.  Scholars say many key beliefs of Christians,
Jews and Muslims can be traced to the teachings of Zoroaster, the
Zoroastrian prophet.

   Yet, with only about 150,000 Zoroastrians in the entire world, they are 
a miniscule minority in every country in which they live.  Survival as a
people is very much on their minds.

   Ironically, local Zoroastrians fear that the almost unlimited tolerance
of the United States may do what hundreds of years of persecution followed
by nearly 1,000 years of benign religious segregation could not do: cause
their young people to stop thinking of themselves as Zoroastrians.

   Zoroastrians do not believe theirs is the only right religion, and they
actually shun the notion of trying to win converts.  So if their children
become totally assimilated, they say, it's their children - rather than
the world at large - who will be the losers.

   "It's important to have an identity," said Maneck Bhujwaia of San Jose,
a leader among Zoroastrians who came here from India.  "It's important
for everybody - Irish, Scottish, Americans.  It gives meaning to life.
You don't have to depend on the majority community to give you respect.
You can fall back on your own identity."

   For Zoroastrians, there's much to be proud of.

   Their prophet, Zoroaster, seeking to make sense of a culture in which
animal sacrifice to multiple gods was common, preached that there was
only one god, a good one.  Zoroastrians call their god Ahura Mazda, which
translates as Lord of Wisdom and Light.

_Good vs. evil_

   Zoroaster saw life as a constant struggle between good and evil, with
the good eventually winning.  Men and women could join in the battle for
good, he said, and he warned that they would inevitably suffer consequences
such as shame and sorrow if they did wrong.  He preached honesty, charity,
kindness to animals, respect for the environment, hard work, equality of
men and women - basic virtues preached by prophets of many religions.

   But Zoroaster was perhaps unusual in that he told his followers not to
follow him blindly.  He demanded they think for themselves.  In fact,
Joseph Campbell, the famous scholar of the history and meaning of myths,
traced the Western emphasis on individual thought to the Zoroastrians.

   Zoroastrians have many words for thought.  Their motto, leaded into a
stained glass window over the sacred fire at the temple on the slopes of
Mount Hamilton, is "Good thoughts, good words, good deeds."

   So it's not surprising that Zoroastrians value education highly.  In India,
where a contingent of Zoroastrians arrived in the ninth century to escape
persecution by Muslims in Iran, Zoroastrians claim 100 percent literacy;
the overall statistic in India is just 60 percent.

   About half of the Bay Area Zoroastrian community came here from India
and Pakistan, mostly to study at universities.  The other half fled from
Iran after the 1979 revolution made that a fundamentalist Islamic state
where others had no rights.

   Local Zoroastrians point with pride to ways their emphasis on "good
deeds" has improved life in every country they inhabit.  In San Jose,
the recent restoration of the Hotel Sainte Clarie came about because
Manou Mobedshahi, a San Francisco-based hotelier, passed the boarded-up
downtown landmark on his way to and from the temple.  At the temple's
dedication, the chief guest of honor was the mother of Zubin Mehta, the
Zoroastrian conductor of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.

   The temple exists because of another good deed: the decision by an
Iranian emigre, the late Arbab Rustom Guiv, to buy land for six temples
in North America.  Besides the 10-acre site off Crothers Road on Mount
Hamilton, he paid for land in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Toronto,
and Vancouver.  Until his gifts, there were no Zoroastrian temples on
this continent.

   Local Zoroastrians raised money to build the actual temple, and the
property already had a large house that they have converted to a
community center.

   The temple, dedicated a year ago on the birthday of the prophet 
Zoroaster, is a simple structure with gleaming white walls, vaulted 
ceilings and oak floors, partially covered with huge Oriental carpets.

   Its central feature is the fire, set in the middle of a partly-glassed-
in area at the center of the building.  Although Zoroastrians are 
sometimes called "fire worshippers," they actually consider fire just 
a symbol of God.  "It helps us concentrate, just like Christians use the 
cross and Muslims use the Holy Book," Bhujwala said.

   The biggest celebration of the years occurs in early spring.  For all
Iranians, including Zoroastrians, the New Year begins on the first day of
the season because of its symbolism as the start of new life.  With
Zoroaster's birthday just six days later, the combination of religious
and secular holidays creates something on par with what most of the
United States celebrates between Christmas and Jan. 1.

  For this year's celebration of the prophet's birthday, about 500 people
came to worship and revel.

   "The good things in life are not forbidden," Esfandiar Anoushiravani,
a leader of the Iranian members, had said beforehand, and what followed
proved him right.

   Inside the temple, worshipers filled every chair and sat or stood
around the edges of the room as about a half-dozen priests chanted
thanksgiving prayers around a table laden with braziers of smoking
sandalwood, glasses of milk and water, and a tray heaped with dried fruit
and nuts.

   Kids crowded around, grabbing handfuls of the treats.  "People eat the
fruit," Tarapore said.  "It's a way to participate in the ceremony."

_Santa Claus, sort of_

   The gathering even had a Santa Claus, Iranian style.  With flowing white
hair and a bag of gifts for the children, this Amownaroz wore green
symbolic of spring) and red.

   He was ushed in by a sort of spring clown, Hajefyrouz, who danced and
played a tambourine.

   The Zoroastrians from India were charmed.  "This is all new for us, too,"
one told a visitor who asked what was going on.

   A visitor, John A. Sabanovich of Folsom, said he became intrigued with
the religion years ago while on business trips to Iran.  Zoroastrians have
no procedure for accepting converts - a result, some say, of their
centuries of persecution in Iran followed by their promise to the Hindu
king who allowed them into India that they would not interfere with his
people's religion.

   But that does not stop Sabavich from joining in the celebrations at the
San Jose temple whenever he can.

   "When I first heard about this religion," he said, "I thought, my God,
this is what a religion should be.  They think for themselves and do good.

   "People who don't have a tradition, something to lean on, what's the
difference with the lower animals?"