Zoroastrian Fire Temple Opened to Non-Parsis for First Time, Upsetting Traditionalists

August 25, 2005

Source: The Indian Express

http://cities.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=145630

On August 25, 2005 The Indian Express reported, "As far as birthday celebrations go, the event was pretty irreverent, but the timing couldn't be better. On Khordad Sal, Prophet Zarathustra’s birthday, a group of Parsis quietly inaugurated a new 'universal agiary' or Fire Temple in a Colaba apartment. It was for the first time in the community’s history a temple was thrown open to non-Parsis. Almost a hundred people, both Parsis and non-Parsis, turned up for the agiary’s jashan and the humbandagi—traditional prayers recited strictly for and by Parsis. And supporting the move were script writer Sooni Taraporevala and Smita Godrej Crishna, sister of industrialist Jamshyd Godrej. The 'blasphemous' move has shaken over 500 years of self-imposed ethnic exclusivity."