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.
The sight of the Pinjarapala is less lugubrious and much more amusing.
The Pinjarapala is the Bombay Hospital for decrepit animals, but a
similar institution exists in every town where Jainas dwell. Being
one of the most ancient, this is also one of the most interesting,
of the sects of India. It is much older than Buddhism, which took
its rise about 543 to 477 B.C. Jainas boast that Buddhism is
nothing more than a mere heresy of Jainism, Gautama, the founder
of Buddhism, having been a disciple and follower of one of the
Jaina Gurus. The customs, rites, and philosophical conceptions
of Jainas place them midway between the Brahmanists and the Buddhists.
In view of their social arrangements, they more closely resemble
the former, but in their religion they incline towards the latter.
Their caste divisions, their total abstinence from flesh, and their
non-worship of the relics of the saints, are as strictly observed
as the similar tenets of the Brahmans, but, like Buddhists, they
deny the Hindu gods and the authority of the Vedas, and adore their
own twenty-four Tirthankaras, or Jinas, who belong to the Host of
the Blissful. Their priests, like the Buddhists', never marry,
they live in isolated viharas and choose their successors from
amongst the members of any social class. According to them, Prakrit
is the only sacred language, and is used in their sacred literature,
as well as in Ceylon. Jainas and Buddhists have the same traditional
chronology. They do not eat after sunset, and carefully dust any
place before sitting down upon it, that they may not crush even
the tiniest of insects. Both systems, or rather both schools of
philosophy, teach the theory of eternal indestructible atoms,
following the ancient atomistic school of Kanada. They assert
that the universe never had a beginning and never will have an end.
"The world and everything in it is but an illusion, a Maya," say
the Vedantists, the Buddhists, and the Jainas; but, whereas the
followers of Sankaracharya preach Parabrahm (a deity devoid of will,
understanding, and action, because "It is absolute understanding,
mind and will"), and Ishwara emanating from It, the Jainas and
the Buddhists believe in no Creator of the Universe, but teach
only the existence of Swabhawati, a plastic, infinite, self-created
principle in Nature. Still they firmly believe, as do all
Indian sects, in the transmigration of souls. Their fear, lest,
by killing an animal or an insect, they may, perchance, destroy
the life of an ancestor, develops their love and care for every
living creature to an almost incredible extent. Not only is there
a hospital for invalid animals in every town and village, but their
priests always wear a muslin muzzle, (I trust they will pardon the
disrespectful expression!) in order to avoid destroying even the
smallest animalcule, by inadvertence in the act of breathing. The
same fear impels them to drink only filtered water. There are a
few millions of Jainas in Gujerat, Bombay, Konkan, and some other places.
The Bombay Pinjarapala occupies a whole quarter of the town, and
is separated into yards, meadows and gardens, with ponds, cages
for beasts of prey, and enclosures for tame animals. This institution
would have served very well for a model of Noah's Ark. In the first
yard, however, we saw no animals, but, instead, a few hundred human
skeletons - old men, women and children. They were the remaining
natives of the, so-called, famine districts, who had crowded into
Bombay to beg their bread.
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