Los Angeles herald., 1909-07-15
THE EMPIRE OF INDIA
XTT-RELTGTON OF THE PARSEES
BY Frederic L Haskin

about thirty feet in height. Permission
to visit the tower compound is easily
obtained but no one is allowed TO go
nearer than the flower garden when
surrounds the House of Prayer at the
gate Even the mourners in funeral
train may not approach nearer than
this.
Men set apart for the purpose, de-
spised by their -religlonists as UNI
clean, take the body from the House
of Prayer, where the mourners stand
with their clothes linked together in
token of united grief They bear the
body on a litter up the inclined plane
which leads to an iron door. a little
more than half way up the side of the
tower. Only these bearded carriers of
the dead are permitted to enter the
towers. If any other person should
see one of the bodies or skeletons In
side he would be cursed with eternal
perdition and his descendants would
share his woe.
Inside the tower is wholly occupied
by circular gridiron, sloping toward
a central we'll and having three concen-
trio rows of inches for bodies. The in
side circle is for children, the next for
women and the outer circle for men.
The body carriers place their burden In
one of the inches, remove the shroud
anu ltdNG the pOuy quite HdhSu.
Then the waiting vultures swoop
down from the sides of the tower and
from every neighborlng tree. In less
than an hour nothing is left but the
clearly picked skeleton. That is per-
mitted to remain for several days, when
the body carriers again enter and throw
the bones into the great we'll at the
center where they are left to await
the slow operation of the transfornla-
tion of dust to dust"
The tower is roofless of course, and
for that reason receives the rain. The
rain water Is polluted by contact with
the eorpses and decaying bones, and
being one of the seacred elements 1t
must be purified. The towers are
drained into the central well, and from
thence Conduits run out in four direc-
tions. Under the tower walls the water
is filtered through several feet of char
coal, and again, at the end of the drain,
through a filter of sand and gravel
Thus purified the water Is permitted
to return again into the earth and the
sea. OF the five Towers of Silence at
Bombay one is reserved for the private
use of the great Jeejeebhoy family, who
built 1t, and another for the use of the
bodies of those who have committed
suicide or who have died unnatural
deaths.
Western opinion concerning this
method of disposing of corpses is di-
vided, some persons advocating 1t be-
cause of its undoubted sanitary per-
lection, but most foreign visitors look
upon IL with repugnance. Even the
burning of the dead on open pyres, as
is done by the Hindus, seems less re-
voting.
The white towers of themselves sug-
gest nothing half so grewsome as the
serrled grave rows of a western ceme-
terry; the house of prayer Is simple
platform open at the sides and rooted
over; the garden is beautiful with the
flowers of the tropic and the temperate
zones, and there Is nothing in the ap-
pearance of the place to suggest any
thing unusual.
But there is always the whir of
wings above, a sound which banishes
forgetfulness and insists upon constant
consciousness of the purpose of this
dread place. Hundreds of hideous vul-
lures sit around the rims of the towers,
forming a living border of black to the
pure white of the structures. The trees
are alive with the great, ugly birds,
and as far as the eye can see they ara
circling, circling, circling.
When the familiar cortege is seen
winding up the long road that leads to
the top of the hill the vultures circle
closer and closer, so that when the pro-
cession has arrived within the COM
round the whole tribe of greedy scaven-
gers is present. The moment the body
carriers deposit the corpse within and
remove the shrould there is a mighty
rush of wings and the swift work or
destruction is begun.
Strange and grewsome as 1t may
seem, It is even more pronounced when
one drives about the streets of the city
and sees here and there marble statue
of some Parsee benefactor whose body
was eaten by those very vultures, when
he sees at the bank or market or In the
club a wealthy and educated man, h
knight of England, perhaps, who knows
that his body will eventually be food
for those same waiting birds.
Western poets have gloomily dwelt
on the horrors of the grave and the
ravages of the worm, but time and
custom have softened those dread pic
lures. The living do not see the grave
worm at his work, but the vulture
swoops down upon his prey in the open
light Whatever one may think of tho
towers of silence and its company Of
black-feathered, sharp-beaked watchers
a visit to the place is something never
to be forgot.
Tomorrow-The Empire of India. XIII.
Many Gods and Many Creeds.