I have read the article "Through the looking glass” (Parsiana, January 7, 2007) about a talk by Rohinton Nariman. May I refer you to three books which your readers may well find interesting?
They are The Ethical Conceptions of the Gatha by J. M. Chatterjee (J. B. Karani Sons), Gathas, or the Hymns of Atharvan Zarathushtra by J. M. Chatterjee and A. N. Bilimoria (Cherag Office) and Chaos, Cosmos and the World to Come by Norman Cohn (Yale University Press).
The first two, printed in the 1930s and passed on to me by my father, examine the similarities between the Gathas and the Vedas, and between the Sanskrit and Avesta languages with texts in English, Sanskrit and Gujarati, while the third has been recently published in paperback and is easily available. It compares the ‘apocalyptic’ faiths — Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Judaism and Christianity — reaching the conclusion that the teachings of Zarathushtra have heavily influenced Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
DHUN R. SETHNA...