Shiruy Kurush Billimoria

Shiruy is a 1st year MPhil/PhD researcher from Mumbai, India, in the Department of History, Religion and Philosophy. 

He is the recipient of the Shapoorji Pallonji Scholarship for studies in Zoroastrianism from the Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies. He has also been awarded the Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe’s Faridoon & Mehraban Zarthosty Brothers scholarship. His PhD project is an extension of his masters dissertation, which was on Zoroastrian business ethos and their roots in theology, where he argued the extent to which Zoroastrian theological values predisposed and influenced the formation of Zoroastrian business ethos. 

He completed his MA with distinction, in History, Religion and Philosophy, with a focus on Zoroastrianism from the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London in 2024. He has a BA (Hons.) in History from Mumbai University. He worked as a Research Asst. and later as a Curatorial Asst. at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Mumbai from 2016-2022. The Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum is the oldest Museum in Bombay, and is one of the Premier cultural Institutes in the city. 

As part of the Museum’s curatorial team, he helped conduct original research on the permanent exhibits for the museum catalogue – Mumbai a City through objects 101 Objects from the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum. He completed his primary, secondary, and higher secondary education at the Byramjee Jeejebhoy Parsee Charitable Institution in Mumbai. Born and brought up as a Zoroastrian, he is an upstanding member of the Parsi community in Mumbai. 

As a child, he volunteered with many community charitable programmes, as well as participated and won various debate and elocution competitions on social, economic, cultural, historical, and religious themes, on the community level and higher, such as – inter-school, ward level, and state level. He continues to take an interest and participate in activities of the Zoroastrian community in London.

Shiruy has an interest in understanding the socio-economic contribution of Zoroastrian businesses and investigating the role that theology plays in it. He wants to track the genesis of the business ethos that lies at the heart of the success of Zoroastrian businesses. 

There has been very little consideration of these ethos and the links to Zoroastrian religiosity. The work proposed aims to improve the understanding of the part theology played and how it could have influenced the formation of the business ethos of Zoroastrian entrepreneurs. 

He intends to position his work within the wide field of Zoroastrian research at the cross-section of the field of anthropological and sociological investigation of the socio-economic contribution of Zoroastrians in India and the world; and, the field of interpreting Zoroastrian theology and its philosophy inherent in Zoroastrian religiosity and the role it plays in the identity formation of the Zoroastrians