Zoroastrianism is the oldest of the prophetic religions. The
founder, Zoroaster, lived in North East Iran about 1200 B.C.E.
(some older books date him later as sixth century B.C.E. but that
view is no longer widely accepted by scholars). His teaching was
the official state religion of three successive Iranian empires
which stood astride the civilisations of East and West — the Achaemenids
sixth-fourth centuries B.C.E.; the Parthians third century B.C.E.
to third century C.E. and the Sasanians third to seventh centuries
C.E. For over a thousand years, therefore, Zoroastrianism was
the most powerful religion in the known world. After the Muslim
invasion in the seventh century Zoroastrians have experienced
over 1300 years of oppression and persecution. They have been
forced to retreat into the protective obscurity of desert towns
and villages. Gradually the numbers dwindled until now there are
only approximately 30,000 Zoroastrians in Iran, the small but
courageous remnant of the mighty religion.
The main base (in numerical terms) of the religion nowadays is
in India. In the tenth century C.E. a small band of Zoroastrian
exiles settled in India where they were known as Parsis (= Persians).
The main centre of the community is Bombay, where they have achieved
considerable wealth and power, but there are communities in the
state of Gujarat, and various parts of India (e.g. Calcutta and
Bangalore). Groups also travelled throughout much of the British
Empire — Hong Kong, East Africa, Britain, then more recently into
the U.S.A., Canada and Australia. Altogether there are now approximately
120,000— 130,000 Zoroastrians in the world, but at least the world’s
oldest prophetic religion remains alive due to the stalwart faithfulness
of its adherents.
The traditional understanding of death
Zoroastrians take seriously the belief in God (Ahura Mazda) as
the good creator. If God is good, then he cannot be the source
of any evil. All evil in the world, they believe, is a weapon
of the Destructive Spirit (Angra Mainyu). The age-old problem
of religions who believe in one creator God is — how can God be
both all-loving and all-powerful in view of the suffering of the
innocent? The traditional Christian answer is tjiat God permits
Satan to attack man; the standard Islamic teaching is that God
decrees all that happens — but Zoroastrians cannot accept that
any evil can come from a good God. The Destructive Spirit, they
believe, is an evil being, who instinctively tries to spoil, defile,
destroy or kill all that is good.
Contrary to God’s creation of health, Evil produced disease;
against beauty, ugliness; against light, darkness; against life,
death. Death is the ultimate weapon with which Evil tries to destroy
God’s Good Creation — plants, animals and mankind. A dead body
is the scene of evil’s triumph; it is a focus where evil forces
are powerfully present.
Belief in the afterlife
But death is not the end of the story, if it were that would
represent the victory of evil over God’s creation. Zoroastrians
believe that after death man’s soul hovers round the body for
three days meditating on its past life. Then it proceeds to its
judgment. Its good thoughts, words and deeds are put in one set
of balances, the evil thoughts, words and deeds in the other.
If the good outweigh the evil the soul is greeted by a beautiful
maiden, the manifestation of the soul’s conscience, who leads
it safely across the bridge of judgment to heaven. But the soul
whose evil thoughts, words and deeds predominate is met by a foul,
ugly old hag, the personification of its conscience, who leads
it trembling to the bridge from where it falls into the dark deep
abyss of hell.
But the stay in heaven and hell is not permanent. Zoroastrians
believe that the purpose of punishment should be to reform. The
purpose of an eternal hell cannot be to reform; such a concept
is, therefore, immoral in Zoroastrian belief. The soul stays in
heaven or hell until the end of world history, being rewarded
or punished according to its merits. Then at the end of history
a saviour will be born who will destroy the force of evil, raise
the dead and introduce the final judgment. The first judgment
is obviously of the soul alone, since the body can be seen to
remain on earth. Because God created body as well as soul it is
important that a person is judged and rewarded or punished in
both aspects of his being. So after the second judgment the whole
person, body and soul, goes to heaven or hell for appropriate
reward or punishment. After this corrective treatment then the
whole of mankind will dwell with God in the perfect blend of heaven
and earth. The resurrection is therefore an essential doctrine
in traditional Zoroastrian teaching because it facilitates judgement
of the life in the divinely created body.
Funeral practices
In view of their beliefs about life, death and the afterlife
how do Zoroastrians treat a corpse? Funeral practices have two
basic aims (a) to restrict the forces of evil which are so powerfully
present at what is considered evil’s temporary victory (b) to
care for the soul of the deceased.
Nowadays Parsis remove the corpse from the home to a special
bungalow (bungli) in the funeral grounds as soon as possible after
death. There it is washed, a priest prays over it and a dog is
brought in to guard people from the unseen spiritual forces of
evil. A dog is a holy animal in Zoroastrianism because it shows
the religious virtues of loyalty, affection and obedience. If
possible the funeral takes place the same day, but never during
the hours of darkness. The funeral rites begin with prayers offered
in the same room as the body led by the priest and in front of
a ritual fire, the living formless symbol of God. Only female
relatives and friends are present during the prayers, the men
wait outside. The funeral procession sets off. The corpse is wrapped
in a clean but old white cloth — old because wastefulness is sinful;
white the symbol of purity and the religion. It is carried on
a metal bier by four corpse bearers (nasarsalas). They and the
whole procession wear white and walk in pairs (in paiwand) linked
together in protection against evil. The priest walks in paiwand
with the dog leading the mourners. After the corpse has been laid
on a slab and the face uncovered for relatives to take their leave
the nasarsalas carry it into a daxma known by the British as ‘Towers
of Silence’. These are round structures with 30 or 40 foot high
walls. The nasarsalas enter up a flight of steps and through a
high door. Inside a circular floor slopes down to a central pit.
Three concentric circles are marked out on the floor, men are
laid in the outer circle, women in the middle one and children
in the inside one. The corpses are exposed naked for vultures
to eat. Blood and juices drain away through channels. The bones
powder in the hot sun and in due course are thrown into the central
pit. Once the corpse has been taken into the daxma the relatives
pray at a distance for about 30 minutes, roughly the length of
time it takes for a vulture to consume the body.
When the family return home they wash, offer prayers and especially
among the Parsis, it is customary to announce donations to charity
in memory of the deceased. Annual rites are offered in memory
of the dead, but in traditional Zoroastrian thought the dead are
not thought of as remote. They are believed to be spiritually
present at religious festivities, not with any sense of morbidness
but rather sharing in the happiness of the living.
Explanation of the rites
At the level of official teaching the reason for the practice
of this exposure of the dead is to avoid defiling God’s good creations
of earth, fire and water by burial, cremation or disposal at sea.
A dead body, as we have seen, is the triumph and presence of evil.
The world is God’s creation, so man should try to keep it in what
Zoroastrians believe is its natural state of health, beauty and
cleanliness. To defile or corrupt it is sin — Zoroastrianism has
been called the world’s first ecological religion.
At the popular level Parsis feel a sense of deep revulsion at
any other form of disposal of the dead. Burial they find especially
repugnant because it takes worms etc. years to accomplish what
takes the vulture 30 minutes. Christian graveyards they consider
very morbid and a waste of valuable land. The method of cremation
in India they find distasteful, where the corpse is burned in.
full public view, takes hours to achieve and can cause deep distress.
Even the modern crematorium in Bombay they find unpleasant where
the oldest son deals with the corpse and the burning can be seen.
By contrast they consider that the daxmas are hygenic, discreet
and conserve land. It is, they say, as natural for birds to eat
the corpse as it is for man to eat meat. Zoroastrianism, having
evolved in the harsh climate of the Asian Steppes, assumes people
eat meat, because of the need for a high-protein diet.
I have, over the years, visited numerous daxmas and the practices
with many Zoroastrians. To be frank I felt a sense of revulsion
before my first visit. I had the fairly typical western horror
at the mental image of the rite of exposure. Yet I found them
to be centres of peace. They are places set apart, even in crowded,
noisy Bombay the pea hens, lizards, creepers give an aura of naturalness.
Indeed it is now a western graveyard which seems to me the more
ghoulish. What is sad beyond words is the sensational journalism
which has depicted insensitively the Zoroastrian practices. Time
magazine, for example, ran an article with photographs from inside
a daxma which caused deep distress to the community. A well known
English evangelical publisher once illustrated an article of mine
(without consultation) with a photograph of a half devoured corpse
in a daxma. Leaving aside the question of how such a photograph
was obtained, I was horror struck by the editor’s justification
which was basically, ‘how can Zoroastrians object since it is
something that they do’, though he admitted he would not publish
a photograph of a Christian corpse in an advanced state of decay
because it would cause offence.
Zoroastrian sensitivities are particularly acute among those
living in the West. Parents anxious to help their young preserve
their heritage are deeply troubled when they consider their religion
is being presented to the public, and to their children, in a
negative manner. But even deeper than that is the sense of spiritual
loss at not being able to practice the religion as they know it,
especially at a time of grief. In the diaspora communities, for
example in Britain, there are no daxmas, so the corpse is buried,
if possible in a stone coffin so that the pollution of death does
not defile the earth, or more often cremation is practised. Naturally
devout Zoroastrians feel the need to explain to themselves how
this is not inconsistent with their beliefs and do so by saying
that with modern western crematoria it is not the sacred flame
but intense heat generated by electricity which consumes the corpse.
In the course of my field work I have lived with Zoroastrian families
in America and elsewhere at times of bereavement. The natural
grief is compounded by the fact that the cherished rites they
have known from childhood, whereby distress has been assuaged,
which provide a catharsis for grief, are simply not possible.
The daxmas and the temples where the higher ceremonies are performed
are a world away. What has always been seen as ‘the proper’ way
to show respect, to honour the departed, to worship God, cannot
be followed through. At such times reason and theological logic
are not the point, there can be a deep yearning to express the
inexpressable emotions through hallowed practices. Journalists,
or teachers, who treat of funeral customs insensitively can both
threaten the religion of the young, and compound distress beyond
words.
Books
For pupils:
- J.R. Hinnells, Persian Mythology, Hamlyn Press, 2nd revised
edition 1985.
- J.R. Hinnells, Spanning East and West, Open University course
AD 208, (1978) ‘Man’s Religious Quest’, Unit 28 which includes
many photographs of daxmas.
- J. R. Hinnells, Zoroastrianism and the Parsis
- Ward Lock Education, (1981) with an account of practices
For teachers
- M. Boyce, History of Zoroastrianism, vol. I, E. J. Brill,
Leiden, 1976 includes a chapter on death and funerals.
- M. Boyce, A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism
- Oxford, 1978 for modern Zoroastrian practice in Iran
- M. Boyce, Zoroastrians: their religious beliefs and practices,
Routledge, 1979, for a general account of the religion including
changes in belief and practices associated with death
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