Options to dakhmenashini

During the past year or more, I have read of many half-hearted and misguided measures suggested, attempted and tried by various organizations or individuals to strengthen dakhmenashini. They include breeding vultures in captivity over existing dakhmas and harnessing solar energy by way of solar panels. Yet burial or cremation are considered forbidden. Breeding vultures is doomed to failure though healthy new species may survive or even thrive for a short period of five to 10 years.

This is due to a complex interplay of three factors: the habitat of birds, the birds themselves and the food for the birds.

When the dakhmas were built in Bombay, the area was a wilderness, the natural home of vultures who roamed (flew) freely in the wooded hills feeding upon their prey, augmented at times by fresh corpses left by charitable Zoroastrians. The subsequent urbanization altered the flight pattern of the birds and decreased their food, except for the corpses, often the putrefying culture of multiple microorganisms which these poor birds have to eat or starve. Thus suffered the well-being of the species, its immune system and breeding grounds. When death is imminent, birth takes a back seat or no seat at all. The premise of charity at death by presenting the unneeded corpse to the birds was a lofty idea which has backfired.

Solar energy concentration under the panels seems too erratic (when sun is not available, as in monsoon) and too weak for quick consumption of the corpse. This is more so in Bombay where the polluted atmosphere interferes with the penetration of sun’s energy.

What do we do now? Maybe, we should go back in time and once again create a natural habitat for the vultures. A non inhabited island off the coast may be leased or purchased by the community and dedicated to remain so for posterity, assuring that the island will never be inhabited by humans. Allowing the vultures to thrive there and then building a dakhma would be the next step. The island may be accessed by ferry or a helicopter ride. Expensive? Yes of course, but the protectors of the faith will come up with the money! Another suggestion is to fast-forward in time and fund scientific programs to harness and concentrate laser energy in a large enough capsule to desiccate the corpse without burning or fire. Any takers? Parsi Zoroastrians at the moving edge of science and technology! Dr MEHROO M. PATEL

Westchester, USA

I have been reading some of the arguments against dakhmenashini. Agreed, vultures play an important catalytical role. However, it is the sun which plays the primary role. This primary source of energy and purification, with the grace of Ahura Mazda, has not failed. How, then, can we say that our time-honored system of Khurshed Nagarishni has failed?

Dr Rodger Doran of the World Health Organization in Ge­ne­va refutes the commonly propagated myth that corpses are sources of disease. There has never been a disease outbreak attributed to non disposal of human bodies killed in a natural disaster. Since dead bodies are immobile, they cannot sustain an outbreak, no matter how many there are (Asian Disaster News, Vol. 6, No. 2, April-June 2000).

It is argued, fire is a great purifier and nothing ever can pollute fire. This is incorrect. Fire simply transforms polluting matter from one state to another.

Have you ever wondered why Parsis use the fire of a burning corpse to consecrate an atash behram (the highest grade fire)? There are 16 fires used for consecrating an atash behram, including the fire of lightning (which may have struck a tree). But why use the fire of a burning corpse? Is it considered holy?

The answer is simple. The fire of a burning corpse is physically purified 91 times and the maximum number of ceremonies are performed over it, with a view to purify it and lift the dross with which the fire of a burning corpse is doctrinally considered to be burdened with.

To claim that the electric crematorium is an efficient and hygienic alternative is a myth. It can neither be acceptable from a religious nor an environmental point of view. And, at this point, we are not even referring to the phenomenal cost of maintaining an electric crematorium.

According to USA Today, in 1998, a record 5,53,000 Americans were cremated. According to this American publication, nearly 25 percent of US deaths are followed by cremation; that number is expected to rise to 40 percent by 2010. This has caused considerable alarm at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

States another publication, The Toronto Star (June 4, 2000), with an air of sarcasm, that cremation, now the choice of some 53 percent of people in the Greater Toronto area is widely regarded as an eco-friendly gesture, notwithstanding smoggy evidence to the contrary. The green movement in Europe has shown increasing concern about cremation which it considers to be an unnecessary and wasteful contributor to greenhouse gases. Anyone with green pretensions should think twice about cremation: 4,37,000 wooden coffins are wastefully burned in the UK each year, polluting the atmosphere with dioxin, hydrochloric acid, hydrofloric acid, sulphur dioxide and carbon dioxide.

It appears disposal of the dead is not just a community problem for Parsis but a global problem as well. People in the western world began to opt for cremation because burial locks up useful land and burial plots are frightfully expensive. It now turns out that cremation harms the atmosphere and contributes to greenhouse gases. And, remember, these are countries that use state-of-the-art crematoriums with sophisticated scrubbers and high chimneys.

All said and done, dakhmenashini is still the best, for now and forever!

NOSHIR H. DADRAWALA