Book Review- The Magicians of Mazda by Ashwin Sanghi

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“...It is fashionable these days to ignore history to preserve the peace between faiths. And I am all for peace and interfaith understanding. But, that process must start with recognizing what happened. Forced conversions did happen, and destruction of Zoroastrian places of worship did happen. Redeployment of fire temples as mosques did happen. Identification of Zoroastrians as a polluted being, najis did happen…. Compulsory humiliation of those paying jizya did happen… After all, if we don’t learn from history, history repeats itself!”

The Magicians of Mazda is a part of the Bharat Series by Ashwin Sanghi. The Dan Brown style of writing with the revelation of diversified Indian secrets kept my patriotic heart enthralled and my mind dipped into the in-between lines reading to grasp all the ancient philosophy and the hidden secrets, not to forget the gripping story plot. The novel is the perfect amalgamation of high-speed drama and yet the elaborative history sharing.

Humana, Hukhta, Hvarshta: Good thoughts, good words, good deeds.

This fiction-history-philosophy book travels backward-- through the epochs of Islamic jihad, Macedonian revenge, Achaemenid glory, messianic birth, and Aryan schism to the Vedic fount (India) from where it all began. Further captivating on the personal front was a reminiscence of touring some of the locations mentioned in novels like Navsari, Diu, and Udvada and linking them with the story portrayed in the novel.

The novel is initially set in 720 CE when some boats dock at the Sanjan port in Gujarat, India. The ships carried 18000 people who fled the cruelty of Iran's Umayyad Caliphate and arrived in India. Many centuries later, the protagonist Jim Dastoor, an Indian Parsi, is kidnapped from his laboratory in Seattle and taken to Tehran. The Ayatollah, an Iranian leader, thinks Jim is the key to uncovering the ancient relic called the Athravan Star, and so his men will do anything to have it.

Overall, the read was enjoyable and quite refreshing. I will recommend it to those who like fiction based on history.

True wisdom lies in knowing that one knows nothing.

Comments

  1. Capt Satendra SangwanAugust 27, 2022 at 7:14 AM

    Thanks for sharing this and appears to be a good read. But indeed writing this nature of fiction itself would be a great thrill.

    ReplyDelete
  2. StutiAugust 27, 2022 at 9:52 AM

    👍🏻👍🏻

    ReplyDelete

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