Dabistan-i Mazahib

or
School of Manners

Translated from the original Persian

by David Shea and Anthony Troyer, 1843

Attributed to Muhammad Muhsin Fani

(c. 1615 - 1671/2)

Volume 1
 Antioch Gate
www.AntiochGate.com
Birmingham, United Kingdom

Published by Antioch Gate 2007

© 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may

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 Foreword to the 2006 republication

Antioch Gate presents the Dabistán-i Mazáhib, or, School of Manners. This is a fully
bookmarked facsimile eBook of the colossal 3-volume, 1,417-page work including a
62-page index (the original edition and subsequent editions of this book do not have
the chapter heading on each page, whereas this eBook edition is fully bookmarked, so
you can navigate at a click).

This book was translated from the original Persian, with notes and illustrations by
David Shea (1777-1836) and Anthony Troyer (died 1865). It was edited with a
preliminary discourse by the latter, and printed in Paris (1843) in three volumes. As
with so many such books, please overlook the obviously biased manner of the
Orientalist commentary on the translation.

As an appendix, there is included the 1809 Farsi edition, printed in Calcutta - a 545-
page work edited, with a glossary, by Nazir ‘Ashraf, under the superintendence of
William Butterworth Bailey Esq. (the latter became thereafter a director of the East
India Company). Nazir ‘Ashraf also composed the epilogue to the Dabistán translation
of Shea and Troyer, immediately prior to the index in Volume 3. The total length of
this entire eBook is thus 1,962 pages.

The Dabistán deals with approximately twelve religions: the first that of the
Zoroastrians [preceded by detail of the old religion before Zoroaster], then those of
the Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Sadakiahs, Vahadians (Unitarians),
Roshenians, Ilahiahs, Philosophers and finally the Sufis. Many sects too are outlined
within these broad religious categories. Sikhism is covered just prior to the section on
Tibetan Buddhism.

Authorship was commonly ascribed to the Sufi Muhammad Muhsin "Fáni" ("the
Perishable") Kashmiri (c. 1615 - 1671 or 1672), but the original Persian work is now
widely held to be that of a Zoroastrian Mobed (a "Mage" in the English tongue),
namely Kaikhusraw Isfendiar ben Azar Kaivan. Oriental libraries seem to be more
accepting of this Zoroastrian authorship than those in Europe. There have been later
"concise" editions of this English translation that all omit swathes of footnotes and
significant portions of the original text (for reference, the Special Introduction to the
1901 edition is given. It is the abridged 1901 edition which is commonly being
republished today). Crowning the deletions, these later editions notably omit the
chapter on the Sufis, which concludes the text, and the invaluable 65-page index that
follows.

Although there are erroneous statements about Mohammedanism (e.g. that adherents
consider the Prophet Mohammed to be the greatest Prophet, and that he is considered
to be the author of the Qur'an and that the Mahdi is a Shi'i innovation) made by the
author and translator, this is an extraordinary, highly-acclaimed landmark publication
brimming with information and fascinating anecdotes, the work of a travelling scholar
on his itinerary from noble Persia to deepest, darkest India in the mid-17th Century.
You will not find many books so crowded, so rich, with history (arcane and profane)
and so possessed of footnotes. There is scant wonder that this work has always been
highly prized amongst the Orientalists of both East and West.
Meet "Antun" (Anton), the Frankish ascetic mentioned in Chapter 1 (p. 137-138), a
man very much like the impoverished Templar Knights, a man who might well have
been an early Rosicrucian - nowhere else have l encountered a reference to such a
person, living in the East, the cradle of Mysteries.

Meet Mohammed Sâíd Sarmed, "the Naked Saint" - a Persian poet of rabbinical
Jewish lineage, who later embraced Mohammedanism, and went to India as a
merchant, where he fell in love with a young Hindu boy named Abhi Chand, whom he
converted to a mixture of Judaism and Mohammedanism. Sarmed’s tomb is at the
entrance to Delhi’s cathedral mosque. In 1647 he was in Hyderabad, and there gave
the author of the Dabistán the material for the brief chapter on the Jews. He co-edited
with the author, a portion of Abhi Chand's Persian translation of the Pentateuch. This
version, cited in the original Dabistán manuscript as far as Genesis 6:8, differs
considerably from European versions. In this 1843 English translation, the
discrepancies between Persian and other Genesis translations are listed, but the entire
Persian Genesis text is not translated into English, presumably because anything
outside of the list of discrepancies would concur with widely-available English
versions of Genesis.

Meet wonder-working fakirs and saintly men of many faiths, Hindu Yogis who
secretly believe in the Prophet Mohammed, but who eat pork and human flesh. Gawk
at those orgiastic, cannibalistic Yogis who would not even shy from incest, and others
who were able to hold their breath for many hours, and marvel at Zoroastrian and
Hindu adepts who have tamed illness and death via the science of Yoga. Not even the
Tibetan Buddhists water themselves down here, collecting human bones and being
divided into two main classes, one of which eats meat.

Learn about the Hindu and Zoroastrian "Yuga" systems, from authentic sources. Learn
of the bitterness between Hindus and their Buddhist opponents. Pore over the
profundities of the highly explosive chapter on the Philosophers, before finally
alighting upon the chapter on the Sufis, which explores Ibn Arabi and touches on
many lesser-known Sufi Sheikhs. This chapter was published as a work in itself, with
an introduction by the venerated Sufi Idries Shah, who was a founding member of the
Club of Rome ("The Religion of the Sufis: from 'The Dabistán' of Mohsin Fani"
London: Octagon Press, 1979 [87 pages]).

The Dabistán is an excellent sourcebook on Eastern religions, a spring of revelations

quite aways from the "New Age" literature which abounds today. The original 1843
edition here reproduced is the best edition you can have, now completely republished
for the first time ever.

- Mayeen Uddin, 2nd November, 2006.

 SPECIAL INTRODUCTION
[to the 1901 edition, not the 1843 edition]
O SEE a people as they see themselves, if we may give that turn to the familiar phrase,
T might apply to the glimpse which this book gives us of Eastern thought, religious
beliefs, traditions, and mode of life, as viewed by an Oriental eye in the early part of the
seventeenth century. It is a work by an Oriental and written for Orientals, but we of
the West may equally profit by its contents. "School of Manners" (in the old sense of morals)
the volume was termed in the first partial version of it that appeared in English, and that title
was afterward retained when a complete translation was published. But "School of Religious
Doctrines, or Institutes," would be a happier designation, and that is the actual Persian title,
Dabtstán-ul-Mazáhab that graces the opening page of the two old manuscripts of the
Dabistán which the favored visitor may see among the treasures of the Mulla Firuz Library
in India. A number of handwritten copies besides these exist, but it is interesting to think
that at least two are preserved in this library which adjoins a Parsi temple in Bombay, and a
description of the life and philosophy of the Parsi Prophet Zoroaster, and of the older Persian
sects, so far as the author Moshan Fáni could learn of them, forms a large part of the
Dabistán. This fact of itself may attract some readers to the subject.
With regard to the author, Moshan Fáni, we know that the year of his birth can hardly
be placed later than A. D. 1615. He was apparently of Iranian extraction, if we rightly
interpret one of his statements. When writing of India he says that "inconstant fortune had
torn him from the shores of Persia and made him the associate of the believers in
transmigration and those who addressed their prayers to idols and images and worshiped
demons." It was for this reason, he adds, that he chose to describe the tenets held by the
subtle class of Hindu reasoners after those of the Parsees. Although most of his life was
passed in India he was a man that had traveled widely. Everywhere he went he carried
with him the keen appreciation of a scholar and the thoughtful observation of one who
wished to learn and to understand the views of others. His note book was in his hand
and with laudable self-criticism he was ever ready to correct his own impressions, if he
found them false, or as he quaintly says in his Oriental fashion, "to draw with the pen of
accuracy the line of erasure over all that was doubtful." Herodotus could have done no
more. On every occasion he took the opportunity to talk with faithful believers of various
creeds and sects and to inquire into their religious ideas and manners and customs. In this
way he gives us some account of no less than a dozen different religions or philosophies.
Although the Dabistan presents a sketch of so many different kinds of doctrines and
religious tenets, in the author's view there were only five great religions. These are Magism,
Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and Mohammedanism. With Magism, or the ancient religion of
Persia, he begins. Much that he says about the early history and religious views of Iran has
little interest except as a picture of Oriental views and habits of thought, which the student,
however, will value; the picture of Parsiism, moreover, is quite inadequate, but his narrative of
the life and legend of Zoroaster is sure to be read by all who care to see what an Oriental
has to say about this remarkable figure in history. It may interest others to know that a
number of Moshan Fáni's strange stories about Zoroaster can now be traced to older and bet-
ter sources, or again be shown to have little or no authority for their existence. The writer of
the present introduction has brought out a number of such points in a recent work on
"Zoroaster the Prophet of Ancient Iran." For this particular reason it did not seem necessary
to correct some of the original translator's comments or footnotes on Zoroaster's era and
teachings, but to allow them to stand just as they were reproduced in the plate proofs.
There is no question that with India and the speculations, beliefs and religious rites of
the Hindus our author was well acquainted. His picture in general is a faithful one. He
finds a place to include the special as well as the general. The theosophic views of the
Vedantists and kindred sects are not wanting, and his picture of the Indian Yogis, Fakirs,
and Mendicants, and of the Persian dervishes, mystics and religious devotees is as good as can be
found in literature. These chapters are sure to be read with interest. It may seem surprising
to miss a detailed account of Buddhism in a work like the present, for Moshan's short
chapter on Buddhism is rather a description of the Jain religion of India, which was the
rival creed in early times to that of the great Enlightened One. But it must be remembered
that in our author's day Buddhism was almost extinct in India, the land that gave it birth,
while Jainism is still to be found there.
For the same reason that there was little occasion to discuss Buddhism in detail there was
also no special call to mention the beliefs and customs of ancient Egypt, as Egypt played no
religious rô1e in Moshan Fáni's day, but he does include Tibet, and readers of Kipling's
"Kim" may be interested in looking up what is said about the early pilgrim Lamas and
spiritual characters of Tibet. The Sikh religion, founded by Nanak, is also not overlooked. To
us of the West, moreover, it may be interesting to see a glimpse of Judaism and Christianity as
observed by a native of the Farther East, who includes passages from Genesis by way of
illustrating his description. His chapter on Mohammedanism is rather long and technical, as
that was the religion of Moshan's own people. For this reason the editor preferred not to
reproduce the entire section from the previously published translation of the Dabistán, but
rather to give its principal features, drawing largely on Troyer's preliminary discourse in the
older volumes. The concluding chapters on the theosophical and philosophical sects will have
an attraction chiefly for those who care to draw nearer to the Oriental habit of mind and
thought, and they show us in spite of certain vagaries how faithful a recorder and critic our
author strove to be.
Taken as a whole the Dabistán seems worthy of the praise bestowed upon it by that
worthy pioneer in Oriental studies, Sir William Jones. It was he who gave the incentive
to his fellow scholar Gladwin, to publish at least a chapter of the work in English, and this
lead was followed by that faithful interpreter of Persia, David Shea. The translation of
Shea, however, was left incomplete, and the last half was taken up and faithfully finished by
Anthony Troyer, who prefaced the work by a preliminary discourse of more than a hundred
pages. The translation of these two scholars was published in 1843, and is now extremely
scarce. It is this rare work that is here reproduced, and the publisher is to be congratulated
on his praiseworthy enterprise, which thus renders more accessible to Western readers so
rare and uncommon an Eastern book. In issuing so diffuse a work, however, the editor was
justified in making certain condensations and omissions, including most of the footnotes of
the earlier edition, as well as in reducing the original preface considerably. In such
matters I have been relieved of responsibility as to choice or method. On the other hand it
has been my pleasant privilege to read the plate proof-sheets, taking the opportunity to
correct certain palpable errors found in the original edition, while allowing numerous
inconsistencies to stand, especially in the matter of spelling proper names. This has been
done designedly to preserve the quaintness of the original, and it may safely be said that
all that is really important in the original will be found in the present edition.
With these words the volume is sent forth; and though "East is East and West is West"
the twain seem certainly to-day to be meeting more closely than ever in the past, and
perhaps a ray of light from the East may come also through the Dabistán, the work of a little
known Oriental writer who could not have dreamed that his treatise on the religious
thought and institutions of his time would ever appear in its present dress in this New
World and century.

A. V. WILLIAMS JACKSON, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK, December 9, 1901.