“Is nirang necessary?”

Dr M. D. Disawalla’s letter ("Is nirang necessary?” Parsiana, February 2003) requests enlightenment from only "qualified and experienced bacteriologist” and not from any religious scholar, on the so-stated "vexatious ritual prevailing in our community,” that is, the "inconceivable” use of nirang (ritualistically purified bull’s urine) during nahan (purification bath) and other Zarathushtrian ceremonies and rituals.

I am neither a "qualified and experienced bacteriologist” nor a religious scholar, but I do know for a fact that a combina­tion of Indian traditional wisdom and modern science has recently led to a unique US patent that was granted to Indian scientists on June 25, 2002 for the use of cow urine distillate as a bio-enhancer! The patent has been granted for a pharmaceutical compo­sition containing an antibiotic and cow urine distillate in an amount effective to enhance the anti-microbial effects of anti­biotic and anti-fungal agents. Moreover, using cow urine dis­tillate as a bio-enhancer has direct implication in drastically reducing the dosage of antibiotics, drugs, and anti-cancer agents while increasing the efficiency of absorption of bio-active molecules, thereby reducing the cost of treatment and also the side-effects due to toxicity.

Indeed, modern science is making rapid strides towards disproving Disa-walla’s perceptible inconceivability of "imbib­ing an excretory product of a bull!” But can any explanation really compensate for one’s lack of faith in religious doctrines and rituals?

Coincidentally, the ritual use of consecrated varasio’s (white bull) urine in Zarathushtrian ceremonies is also well known. And, although gomez and nirang are in ritual use for several centuries their benefits are relatively underestimated as there is no perceivable scientific explana­tion offered. Efforts were made in the mid-60s by Dastur (Dr) Sorab H. Kutar to get the nirang pathologically tested by Dr Saunders, consultant bacteriologist, at the St. Nicholas Hospi­tal, London who confirmed that the nirang was indeed free of all bacteria!

The Zarathushtrian rituals incorporate the efficacy of sound energy (manthra), light energy (fire) and the energy or magnetism that exists in water, humans (priests), metal, earth, etc. By combining and harnessing all these collectively, we can achieve spiritual results that are beyond the "scientific” scope and can never be measured by any physical equipment. With the help of Zara­thushtrian manthravani, nirang and hom are transmuted during the rituals of nirangdin and vendidad! Today, scientists use water, metal, sound and light as conductors! But, for several centuries now, all these items are in fact being used in all Zarathushtrian rituals performed in the sacred confines of con­secrated adarians and atash behrams and with the help of kash or pavi whereby a factual force-field is created.

According to a recent report published in the US Press, a leading research team comprising of Rustom Taleyarkhan, a senior scien­tist at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee and Prof Richard Lahey, professor of engineering at the Rensselaer Poly­technic Institute in Troy have successfully diverted a very high frequency sound wave in a body of fluid to achieve the effect known as "sono-Luminiscence” wherein luminescent bubbles are formed due to the extremely high frequency waves of energy di­verted in the fluid and this process produces what is called fusion.

Hats off to our wise and sagacious ancestors who actually knew of this science and have used it in the ceremony of nirang­din since centuries! This is the power of the Zarathushtrian manthravani based on "Staotacha Ahurai;” "staot” which is the first law of the Universe, the first law of creation! of what is today called nuclear physics!

The nirangdin ceremony is performed only after the pair of mobeds undergo the nine-night stringent bareshnum (nahan) to ritualistically purify their inner and physical bodies. They then perform the yasna ceremony for six days and prepare for the final night when they bring down the nirang or the divine energy from the spiritual world and direct it into the container of taro! If only we realize how scientific our religion is, we will not ridicule or question its ritualistic intricacies. Purity through spiritual transmutation is achieved during the ceremony of nir­angdin by interweaving staot manthravani from Yasna, Visperad and through the potent Vendidad: Vi+ Daevo+Dad (laws to defeat the druj).

During the nirangdin ceremony, very high frequency manthra­vani staot are directed in a container filled with taro. Simul­taneously, pebbles are also thrown in the container of taro, and while reciting specific manthravani words, the mobed opens the lid of the container of taro and directs staot energy in the container, thereby causing the same process that scientists like Taleyarkhan and Lahey have currently achieved through their experiment. It is because such high frequency sound waves are directed in the container of taro that the fluid gets transformed into "ab-e zar” or the golden water, remaining free of any con­tamination for months and years on end as proved by Saunders in London.

This is the bulandi (strength) of our great Mazdayasni Zarathushti din and those who question or ridicule such rituals like the nirang or hom, do so due to lack of understanding of the spiritual process of manthravani!

To each his own, I suppose!

ADIL J. GOVADIA

Bangalore

Dr M. D. Disawalla has given a very comprehensive description of the nirang ("Is nirang necessary?” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, February 2003), and the process and prayers it goes through before it is purified and considered fit for religious rituals. He however categorically concludes that pathological tests have time and again amply proved that the bacteria contents of the nirang remains the same when tested in its original form, or when tested after the nirangdin prayers. The same applies to whether the urine was that of an ordinary bull or a varasio. Thus the purification prayers have not stood the test of scientific eva­luation.

The nirang ritual, as quite rightly brought out by Disawal­la, appears to be no different from the voodoo rituals of certain African tribes, who are made to drink a decoction of cattle blood and semen in their initiation into adulthood ceremonies, or the Hindu belief in the purity of the Ganga water, or the healing properties of cow’s urine as mentioned in ancient Hindu texts.

To answer Disawalla’s question, "Is nirang necessary?” — the answer is an emphatic "No.” In the days before the advent of modern antiseptics, perhaps nirang served a purpose. However to perpetu­ate this ritual in an era of Lister-ine and Dettol by a so-called enlightened community like ours, is uncivilized and repugnant.

Brig NOSHIR B. GRANT

Poona