Parsis
PARSIS (Pārsis, also rendered as Parsees), "Persians," or Zoroastrians, from Iran who settled in the Indian subcontinent during the tenth century CE, and their descendents.
Origins
Zoroastrians in Iran had contact with people in the Indian subcontinent from at least the fifth century BCE through overland and maritime trade. After the Arab Muslim conquest of Iran in the seventh century CE, there were many small, poorly documented migrations by Zoroastrians away from that country over both land and sea. The one relocation that gained a historiography probably occurred in the tenth century and produced the Parsi community in India. That particular migration is recorded as the Parsi community's founding legend, known as the Qessa-e Sanjān (Story of Sanjan), a New Persian narrative poem based upon an older oral tradition, composed in 1600 CE. It forms the basis—idealized and augmented—for much of the Parsis' early history. According to the text, during the reign of the Samanid kings (892–1005) many Zoroastrians from the northeastern Iranian province of Khorasan relocated overland via the mountains of Kuhestan to the Persian Gulf port of Hormuz, then by ship via the Persian Gulf and the Indian island of Diu to Gujarat in western India.
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