We Have Twice Been Present At The Ceremonies Of Dying, And Once
Of Burial, If I May Be Permitted To Use Such An Incongruous Term.
In This Respect The Parsees Are Much More Tolerant Than The Hindus,
Who Are Offended By The Mere Presence At Their Religious Rites Of
An European.
N. Bayranji, a chief official of the tower, invited
us to his house to be present at the burial of some rich woman.
So we witnessed all that was going on at a distance of about forty
paces, sitting quietly on our obliging host's verandah.
While
the dog was staring into the dead woman's face, we were gazing,
as intently, but with much more disgust, at the huge flock of
vultures above the dakhma, that kept entering the tower, and flying
out again with pieces of human flesh in their beaks. These birds,
that build their nests in thousands round the Tower of Silence,
have been purposely imported from Persia. Indian vultures proved
to be too weak, and not sufficiently bloodthirsty, to perform the
process of stripping the bones with the despatch prescribed by
Zoroaster. We were told that the entire operation of denuding the
bones occupies no more than a few minutes. As soon as the ceremony
was over, we were led into another building, where a model of the
dakhma was to be seen. We could now very easily imagine what was
to take place presently inside the tower. In the centre there
is a deep waterless well, covered with a grating like the opening
into a drain. Around it are three broad circles, gradually sloping
downwards. In each of them are coffin-like receptacles for the
bodies. There are three hundred and sixty-five such places. The
first and smallest row is destined for children, the second for
women, and the third for men. This threefold circle is symbolical
of three cardinal Zoroastrian virtues - pure thoughts, kind words,
and good actions. Thanks to the vultures, the bones are laid bare
in less than an hour, and, in two or three weeks, the tropical sun
scorches them into such a state of fragility, that the slightest
breath of wind is enough to reduce them to powder and to carry
them down into the pit. No smell is left behind, no source of
plagues and epidemics. I do not know that this way may not be
preferable to cremation, which leaves in the air about the Ghat
a faint but disagreeable odour. The Ghat is a place by the sea,
or river shore, where Hindus burn their dead. Instead of feeding
the old Slavonic deity "Mother Wet Earth" with carrion, Parsees
give to Armasti pure dust. Armasti means, literally, "fostering
cow," and Zoroaster teaches that the cultivation of land is the
noblest of all occupations in the eyes of God. Accordingly, the
worship of Earth is so sacred among the Parsees, that they take
all possible precautions against polluting the "fostering cow"
that gives them "a hundred golden grains for every single grain."
In the season of the Monsoon, when, during four months, the rain
pours incessantly down and washes into the well everything that
is left by the vultures, the water absorbed by the earth is filtered,
for the bottom of the well, the walls of which are built of granite,
is, to this end, covered with sand and charcoal.
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