From the caves and jungles of Hindostan (1892) - Page 21

FROM THE CAVES AND JUNGLES OF HINDOSTAN.

...and flying out again with pieces of human flesh in their beaks. These birds, which build their nests by the thousands around the Tower of Silence, were specifically imported from Persia. Indian vultures proved to be too weak and not bloodthirsty enough to strip the bones with the speed prescribed by Zoroaster. We were told that the entire process of stripping the bones takes 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 on display. We could then easily imagine what was happening inside the tower. In the center, there is a deep, dry well covered with a grating like a sewer opening. Around it are three broad circles that gradually slope downward. Each circle contains coffin-like receptacles for the bodies. There are three hundred and sixty-five such spots. The first and smallest row is for children, the second for women, and the third for men. This threefold circle symbolizes the three core Zoroastrian virtues: pure thoughts, kind words, and good actions. Thanks to the vultures, the bones are stripped bare in less than an hour. Within two or three weeks, the tropical sun parches them until they are so fragile that the slightest breeze reduces them to powder and carries them down into the pit. No smell is left behind, and there is no source for plagues or epidemics. I am not sure that this method isn't preferable to cremation, which leaves a faint but disagreeable odor in the air around the Ghat. A Ghat is a place by the sea or riverbank where Hindus burn their dead. Instead of feeding the old Slavonic deity "Mother Wet Earth" with carrion, the Parsees give pure dust to Armasti. Armasti a reference to Spenta Armaiti, the spirit of Earth/Devotion literally means "fostering cow," and Zoroaster teaches that cultivating the land is the noblest of all occupations in the eyes of God. Accordingly, the worship of the Earth is so sacred among the Parsees that they take every possible precaution to avoid polluting the "fostering cow" that gives them "a hundred golden grains for every single grain." During the monsoon season, when rain pours incessantly for four months and washes everything left by the vultures into the well, the water absorbed by the earth is filtered. To achieve this, the bottom of the well, which has granite walls, is covered with sand and charcoal.

IN BOMBAY.

The sight of the Pinjarapala is less mournful and much more amusing. The Pinjarapala is the Bombay hospital for elderly or disabled animals, and similar institutions exist in every town where the Jains live. The Jains are one of the most interesting and ancient sects of India. Their sect is much older than Buddhism, which began around 543 to 477 B.C. The Jains boast that Buddhism is nothing more than a heresy of Jainism, claiming that Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, was a disciple and follower of one of the Jaina Gurus. The customs, rites, and philosophical concepts of the Jains place them midway between the Brahmanists and the Buddhists. In terms of their social arrangements, they more closely resemble the former, but in their religion, they lean toward the latter. Their caste divisions, total abstinence from meat, and refusal to worship the relics of saints are as strictly observed as the tenets of the Brahmans. However, like Buddhists, they reject the Hindu gods and the authority of the Vedas, and instead worship their own twenty-four Tirthankaras, or Jinas, who belong to the "Host of the Blissful." Their priests, like Buddhist monks, never marry and live in isolated...