Editing Parsis (section)

==== Effect of the calendar disputes ====
Since some of the [[Avesta]] prayers contain references to the names of the months, and some other prayers are used only at specific times of the year, the issue of which calendar is "correct" also has theological ramifications.

To further complicate matters, in the late 18th century (or early 19th century) a highly influential head-priest and staunch proponent of the ''Kadmi'' calendar, Phiroze Kaus Dastur of the Dadyseth Atash-Behram in Bombay, became convinced that the pronunciation of prayers as recited by visitors from Iran was correct, while the pronunciation as used by the Parsis was not. He accordingly went on to alter some (but not all) of the prayers, which in due course came to be accepted by all adherents of the ''Kadmi'' calendar as the more ancient (and thus presumably correct). However, scholars of [[Avestan language]] and linguistics attribute the difference in pronunciation to a vowel-shift that occurred only in Iran and that the Iranian pronunciation as adopted by the ''Kadmi''s is actually more recent than the pronunciation used by the non-''Kadmi'' Parsis.

The calendar disputes were not always purely academic, either. In the 1780s, emotions over the controversy ran so high that violence occasionally erupted. In 1783 a ''Shahenshahi'' resident of Bharuch named Homaji Jamshedji was sentenced to death for kicking a young ''Kadmi'' woman and so causing her to miscarry.

Of the eight Atash-Behrams (the highest grade of [[fire temple]]) in India, three follow the ''Kadmi'' pronunciation and calendar, the other five are ''Shahenshahi''. The ''Fassali''s do not have their own Atash-Behram.