Zadrab

Zadrab is the name of a divinity worshipped by "Zadrabis" (followers of Zadrab) alone or as part of the "Imyat Zadrabay", or "Assembly of Zadrab." Attempts to learn more about this small and secretive sect and its tenets have not met with any significant success. The possibility that this information stems from a hoax should not be overlooked.

Origins

Speculations on the origins of the name Zadrab and of the liturgical language which the Assembly apparently uses in worship have likewise not been productive. The "-ay" suffix of "Zadrabay" may be either a genitive or adjective ending ("of Zadrab").

One explanation accounts for the name as a variant spelling through metathesis and thus links the name to the city (and raion) of "Zardab" (note the spelling difference) in the Republic of Azerbaijan. This theory thus gives the name, if not the sect's religious beliefs, a Middle Eastern or Asian origin. The name "Zardab" is a Persian compound word (زردآب) meaning "Yellow Water." The family name "Zardabi" ("of Zardab") is clearly related (cf. the 19th-century Azerbaijani scientist and journalist Hasan bey Zardabi).

Another explanation asserts a relationship to the word satrap, also ultimately of Persian origin, meaning "protector of the land or country," a plausible name for a regional or tribal divinity.

A third conjecture derives the name from the Greek αστραπή "astrape" "lightning; brightness" -- a name again appropriate for a deity, especially in the Indo-European tradition of sky and weather gods.

At present all three of these explanations are still tentative and likely to remain so unless further information becomes available.

ources and Beliefs

Two irregularly-maintained websites by authors both identifying themselves as Zadrabis or "followers of Zadrab" have appeared and subsequently disappeared on the web since 2002, suggesting that an individual member or members may have wished to disseminate at least the outlines of their faith to a wider audience. However, it is not known whether the "Imyat Zadrabay" exerts any official central authority over the faith (and thus caused the websites to be discontinued), or whether it is merely a clearing-house for information and record-keeping for the group.

The more recently appearing website (on Yahoo/Geocities, now deleted) consisted of a single page with no graphics, contact address or other links. Among the scant information it offered was a quotation from Evangeline Walton's Mabinogion tetralogy:

“Only by courage can you grow great. I gave my children freedom, and the price of freedom is hard. It is mistake after mistake, pain after pain. Yet if my care surrounded you always, you would be as caged as birds forever. Men and women never could grow up, whatever their bodies did. To make all of you sharers in My wisdom and My strength, I long ago yielded up my supreme power and let evil come into the world.”

An internet correspondent who visited the same Geocities site before it was deleted supplied some additional information and two quotations. Apparently the Geocities author claimed that the Walton quotation is a paraphrase of material from a Zadrabi sacred text entitled "The Ketah of Zadrab":

“Courage you require, that you may grow in my desire for you. For I have given my children freedom, and the price is high: you shall pay it from mistake to mistake, in pain upon pain. Yet if my care surrounded you in all your ways, you would be as caged birds forever. Never could men grow, whatever form their bodies assume. Therefore, that you might all be sharers in my wisdom-strength, I yielded up my "ketah" long ago, and let evil enter the world.”

“When you do "higed," ask not for my "ketah" to manifest, but know that it is already present in shapes and chances of the world, ready to hand. For my "ketah" shatters worlds and unmakes the veil of form. Thus do I abstain from wielding it, and so make possibility for my children.”

If this unsubstantiated assertion of borrowing is in fact true, the question remains: how did Walton gain access to a Zadrabi text during the time of the novel's composition? And why would she introduce a non-Welsh source when her Celtic materials seemed amply rich in every other instance?

The only other known reference in print which evidently refers to the sect appears in a traveler's account, "In Kabul With Col. Anderson" (Ballenmeade Press, London, 1837): "The following morning I departed with my bearer Abdul Khan, he urging my safety as reason to avoid the main road and head overland south by paths he knew. An hour into the journey, we gave way to a band of some dozen travelers on foot, garbed all in grey, Abdul naming them Zadrabis, an obscure sect which he excoriated as infidels, but which he seemed also to fear" (46).

If all things Zadrab are part of a hoax, it is an intriguing one. The date of publication of the above book puts the Colonel in Afghanistan before the First Afghan War (1839-1842). No record of a Ballenmead Press has yet been found. (The closest similar name, Ballymeade, refers to a country club on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.) But according to [http://www.adam-matthew-publications.co.uk/digital_guides/india_during_the_raj_parts_1_and_2/Biographical-Notes-Part-1.aspx published diaries] in the British Library, there are two possible military men who could in fact be the mysterious Colonel -- Col. William Anderson (1804-1869) and Lt. Colonel William Anderson (1803-1858) -- and both fought in the First Afghan War.

Terms

The defunct website also provided a guide to a few religious terms, together with a phonetic pronunciation and a phrase or two about each.

*Zadrab (zah-DRAHB): divinity of the "Imyat Zadrabay"
*imyat (eem-YAHT): "assembly; gathering"
*yeruk (yeh-ROOK): "officiant" or "sacrificer" of the Imyat
*ketah (keh-TAKH): "crown; glory" or "presence of divinity"
*higed (hee-GEHD): "(religious) practice; worship; ritual"

External links

* [http://www.adam-matthew-publications.co.uk/digital_guides/india_during_the_raj_parts_1_and_2/Biographical-Notes-Part-1.aspx INDIA DURING THE RAJ: EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS] Diaries and Related Records Held at the British Library, London. (Adam Matthew Publications Ltd. Pelham House, London Road, Marlborough, Wiltshire, SN8 2AA, ENGLAND). [Source for evidence of a "Colonel Anderson"; see Reels 15 and 25.]