Parsi Khabar

Do not be alarmed if you see a group of masked youngsters armed with brooms and mops entering a fire temple on a Sunday morning.
KEEPING HERITAGE SPIC AND SPAN
By Mahafreed Irani / TNN

Mumbai: They belong to a voluntary gang of bravehearts on their way to scrub the agiary inners. College students Ronisha Chinoy, Sharmin [...]

More than 2,000 Parsis flocked to celebrate the anniversary of the city’s youngest fire temple last week.
Posted in DNA India

The Shapurji Fakirji Jokhi Agiary in Godrej Baug, Malabar Hill, completed 10 years on December 18. The priest performed prayer ceremonies in the afternoon. Youth leaders also spoke to the people about uniting as a community. [...]

Farhad Bhesania, 31, a Godrej Baug resident, has never regretted the decision he took nearly 17 years ago. Belonging to a family of Parsi priests, Bhesania chose a different path for himself.
By Ashutosh Shukla / DNA
“If I had stepped into my family’s footsteps, I would have lived in guilt,” said Bhesania who works as [...]

More than 2,000 Parsis flocked to celebrate the anniversary of the city’s youngest fire temple last week.
The Shapurji Fakirji Jokhi Agiary in Godrej Baug, Malabar Hill, completed 10 years on December 18. The priest performed prayer ceremonies in the afternoon. Youth leaders also spoke to the people about uniting as a community. The celebrations finished [...]

In early summer 2009, Jim Engineer, one of the founders of NextGenNow got in touch with me to see if I would like to write an article for the Fall 2009 FEZANA Journal. NextGenNow as an organisation were guest-editing. The above-titled article is one of the two articles I wrote for this edition.
My earliest memories [...]

Ervad Marzban J.  Hathiram, a good old friend, editor of Frashogard.com and the Panthaki at the Jogeshwari Daremehr has written a hard hitting post on religious adultery.
Marzban writes
My apologies for not updating the blog for the last few weeks since I was tied up in the Muktad preparations and prayers in our Daremeher at [...]

Arjun Rampal should apologise to the Parsis. This is the demand from sections of the Parsi community who are scandalised with the actor for stating in a recent interview to a men’s magazine that he had visited a Parsi fire-temple or agiary. "I must be one of the few people who has gone into the [...]

Demure and unassuming, Sardar Sorabji Patel Agiary in Nana Peth is quite like the Iranian and Parsi Zoroastrians who worship at this fire temple. And, although the community is arguably among the richest, the temple itself wears an austere look.
The agiary (Gujarati word for house of fire’) was originally built in 1824 by Seth [...]

In a major victory for the Parsi community in the city, the Bombay high court recently dismissed an application seeking to commercially exploit a portion of the Kappawala Agiary (fire temple) at Tardeo.
Justice Nishita Mhatre upheld the order of the charity commissioner, which had denied permission to the Seth Shapurji Sorabji Kappawal Charitable Trust [...]

By Nauzer Bharucha I tnn
Miunbai: For the 45,000 Parsis in Mumbai, Friday is a special day – not only will they celebrate the birthday of fire, considered to be the son of god, but will also observe the 300th anniversary of the city’s oldest fire temple in the Fort area of south Mumbai.

Adar Roz nu [...]

More than 1,000 Parsis flocked to the city’s oldest fire temple to celebrate the Zoroastrian Feast of Fire, which fell on the agiary’s 300th anniversary.
The Banaji Limji Agiary, in Banajit Street in Fort, was built by a wealthy Parsi trader Banaji Limji in 1709. It is one of 40 fire temples in the city [...]

Shernaaz Engineer informs us of the 150th anniversary of Sorabji Thoothi Agiary at Walkeshwar, Mumbai
People have birthdays, and places do too. Sacrosanct places that are awash with a vibrancy which the passing years just cannot wear away – and sustain us with a grace that gets more generous as time goes by.
For many Parsis, one [...]

Source: Sasanika, The History and Culture of Sassanians, UC Irvine School of Humanities
The Caucasus is a land of diverse population and beliefs. Today, Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Yazidis live in cities and villages in the valleys and gorges of the region. One religion that had a strong impact on ancient Armenia, Georgia, and the [...]

The following is compiled from various sources for The Informal Adult Classes on Zoroastrian Religion & History, by Keki B. Shroff, Toronto, Canada
DADGAH, AGIARY & DAR-E-MEHR
TERMS EXPLAINED
There is seldom any confusion regarding the terms Atash Bahram and Atash Adaran because the distinction between the two grades of fire are self-evident in the nomenclature itself. [...]

The following is compiled from various sources for The Informal Adult Classes on Zoroastrian Religion & History, by Keki B. Shroff, Toronto, Canada
DADGAH, AGIARY & DAR-E-MEHR
TERMS EXPLAINED
There is seldom any confusion regarding the terms Atash Bahram and Atash Adaran because the distinction between the two grades of fire are self-evident in the nomenclature itself. [...]