Parsi

Meanings

Noun

• A member of the larger of the two Zoroastrian communities of the Indian subcontinent.

Adjective

• Of, or pertaining to, the Zoroastrian community of the Indian subcontinent.

Origin

• Borrowed from Gujarati પારસી, "as the Gujaratis, from long tradition, called anyone from Iran", from Sanskrit पारसि, पारसिक, from Middle Persian.
• The Indian term is attested many centuries prior to the arrival of the Parsis on the Indian subcontinent, and appears both for Iranians generally, as well as in the specific Iranian sense of Middle Persian parsi(k) ("of, or pertaining to, Persia proper") to refer to Sassanian kings, e.g. in the 4th-century Mahabharata. The Indian term is thus conventionally assumed to be ultimately a loanword from Middle Persian (or general Middle Iranian) parsi(k). In colonial times the term was also applied to the Portuguese, and by extension to Europeans in general.
• Older texts have pārasā́rya "Perso-Iranian", etc. Other Iranian ethnonyms found in the Mahabharata include Sanskrit pahlava, pahnava "Parthian(s)", sāka "(eastern) Scythian(s)", bāhlika "Bactrian(s)".