BABYLON AND PERSIA

A NOTABLE RELIGIOUS SURVIVAL.J6. The self-exiled Zoroastrians fared better. Afterwandering for many years soinewhat at random, stop¬ping at various places, but not attempting any per¬manent settleinent until they effected a descent onthe western coast of India, they reached at last thepeninsula of Gujerat (or Guzerat), where theywere hospitably received by the reigning Hinduprince, after they had agreed to soine by no meansonerous conditions :they were to lay down theirarms, to give an account of the religion they pro¬fessed, to adopt the language of the country, toconform to some of its customs.From this timeforth and through several centuries the Zoroastrianexiles, who now began to be called Parsis, prosperedgreatly.Deprived of arms, and with no call to usethem had they retained them, they settled into thethrifty, intelligent, industrious ways which charac¬terize them at the present day.Agriculture andcoininerce became their favorite pursuits, and asthey were in no way repressed or restrained, theybegan to sjiread even as far as Upper India (thePenjab). Then, about 1300 A.D., they were oncemore driven forth homeless, by aMussulman in¬vasion, which ended in the conquest of Gujerat., This time, however, they did not stray far, butbetook themselves to Navsari and SURAT nearthe coast, where they came in contact with Euro¬peans, to the great furtherance of their commercialinterests. It was undoubtedly this new coinmercialintercourse which drew them southwards, tothe great centre of the western coast, the city ofBombay, where we find them as early as about