Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, or the Central and Western Rajput States of India v1.c20.s1.36

v1.c20.s1.36

“Thus far have I⁴ extracted from the history of the fire-worshippers. He who has a mind to examine these, let him do so. The people of the religion of Zardusht have a full knowledge of all these events, with their dates; for the pleasure of their lives is the obtaining accounts of antiquity and astronomical knowledge, and their books contain information of two and three thousand years. It is also told, that when the fortunes of Yazdegird were on the wane, his family dispersed to different regions. The second daughter, Shahr Banu, was married to Imam Husain,¹ who, when he fell a martyr (shahid), an angel carried her to heaven. The third daughter, Banu, was seized by a plundering Arab and carried into the wilds of Chichik, thirty coss from Yazd. Praying to God for deliverance, she instantly disappeared; and the spot is still held sacred by the Parsis, and named ‘the secret abode of perfect purity.’ Hither, on the twenty-sixth of the month Bahman, the Parsis yet repair to pass a month in pilgrimage, living in huts under indigenous vines skirting the rock, out of whose fissures water falls into a fountain below: but if the unclean approach the spring, it ceases to flow.