Word: parsis
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Indian Findings. What provided the clue was a study by Bombay Drs. S.M. Sirsat, J.C. Paymaster and A.B. Vaidya of the Parsis, descendants of the Zoroastrians who fled Persia 1,200 years ago, settled in India and married exclusively within their own sect. Parsi women are three times more likely to develop breast cancers than the rest of the Indian population. Nearly 40% of the Parsi mothers studied showed virus-like particles in their milk...
Unjustified Risk. Many doctors assume that circumcision prevents cancer of the penis. But Preston notes that penile tumors occur in circumcised as well as uncircumcised men. Nor does circumcision appear to be a major factor in preventing cancer of the cervix in women. Men of India's Parsi group are not circumcised; Jewish men are. Yet cervical cancer is rare among the wives of both groups. It is more frequent, however, in lower-class Moslem women, whose husbands, though circumcised, maintain low standards of personal hygiene...
Brahms & Dogfish. Indeed, he seems to have been destined for ein Heldenleben. He was born into the Parsi sect, whose members he calls "the Jews of India"; they are descended from a group that fled Persia 1,300 years ago so that they could continue to practice their Zoroastrian faith. The Parsis, 150,000 strong, are business, commercial and social leaders of Bombay, noted for their receptivity to Western culture...
...Balance Sheet. In a nation with a 25% literacy rate, the Parsis can boast that more than 90% of the sect's members can read and write. Despite the widespread hunger and poverty of India, the Parsi poor rarely starve; in the city of Bombay alone, one trust established by wealthy members of the sect provides low-income housing for more than 6,000 Parsi families and welfare payments for the unemployed...
According to Parsi tradition, Zoroaster was assassinated at the age of 77 by an unbeliever while worshiping at a fire temple. Within a century after his death, his teachings seem to have been accepted as the state religion by the Persian Emperor Artaxerxes. Although the faith was driven underground after Persia's conquest by Alexander the Great, Zoroastrian ideas circulated widely in the Middle East. Almost certainly the magi who came to Bethlehem to honor the newborn Jesus were Zoroastrians, and many scholars believe that echoes of Zoroastrian theology can be found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Revived...