United States or Benin ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
If any one, who has once been carried thither, should happen to regain consciousness, the nassesalars are bound to kill him; for such a person, who has been polluted by one touch of the dead bodies in the dakhma, has thereby lost all right to return to the living, by doing so he would contaminate the whole community.
The body remains on the spot where life left it, until the nassesalars appear, their arms hidden to the shoulders under old bags, to take it away. Having deposited it in an iron coffin the same for everyone they carry it to the dakhma.
I found without difficulty the banyan tree which had been the trysting-place, and close by it the little cave with its mysterious well, everything in fact precisely as related, even to the "Farsees'" garden or cemetery, with its "Tower of Silence," or "Dakhma," as it is called by the natives. The cave and the banyan are among the many attractions of what is now Herr Blaschek's villa.
Less interesting, because formal and inanimate, even to sulkiness, are the prim little Parsee maidens, who often wear an "exercised" expression, of a settled sort, as though they were weary of reflecting on the hollowness of the world, and how their dolls are stuffed with sawdust, and that Dakhma, the Tower of Silence, is the end of all things.
"They shall search for a Dakhma, they shall look for a Dakhma all around. If they find it easier to remove the dead, they shall take out the dead, they shall let the house stand, and shall perfume it with Urvâsna or Vohú-gaona, or Vohú-kereti, or Hadhâ-naepata, or any other sweet-smelling plant.
And as soon as the birds begin to fly, the plants to grow, the hidden floods to flow, and the wind to dry up the earth, then the worshippers of Mazda shall lay down the dead on the Dakhma, his eyes towards the sun.
If the worshippers of Mazda have not, within a year, laid down the dead on the Dakhma, his eyes towards the sun, thou shalt prescribe for that trespass the same penalty as for the murder of one of the faithful; until the corpse has been rained on, until the Dakhma has been rained on, until the unclean remains have been rained on, until the birds have eaten up the corpse."
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.
As some such cases have occurred, the Parsees are trying to get a new law passed, that would allow the miserable ex-corpses to live again amongst their friends, and that would compel the nassesalars to leave the only gate of the dakhma unlocked, so that they might find a way of retreat open to them.
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.
Word Of The Day