“Spiritual hara-kiri”

It was amusing to read the "rantings” of the learned Mehli Bhagalia from California, ("Spiritual hara-kiri,” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, June 2004) where he has ridiculed the "repeated rantings” of Brig N. B. Grant. Bhagalia has informed us that the dakhmenashini method of disposal of the dead and the religious ceremonies associated with it are the most scientific and ecologically sound mode ever devised. It is also, he says, most desirable for the onward journey of the soul.

For being the most scientific and ecologically sound mode of disposal, I would suggest that Bhagalia during one of his frequent visits to India, pay a visit to a dakhma where decomposing bodies lie for long periods and are ultimately buried.

I wonder what happens to the dead and to the soul when a Zarathushti dies in California. Not having any Tower of Silence in California, do they leave the body on mountain tops as was done in ancient Persia? And what happens to the soul? Does it float around in California forever?

Bhagalia has quoted from our sacred scriptures that inter-religious marriages are spiritual sins. Maybe he is right. But then in one of our daily prayers — Doa Tandarosti — we express the hope that "May the Religion of Zarathushtra bring happiness among all mankind.” Unless someone like Grant surreptitiously inserted it in our sacred prayers!

By all accounts the number of followers of the Zoroastrian religion who fled Persia and landed in India some 1,300 years back were a mere handful. And so unless they intermarried with the locals, we could not have reached the numbers we were a few decades back. Even quite a few of the family surnames suggest such intermarriages. Surnames like Grant, Motivala and Bhagalia raise such suspicion.

As Grant has repeatedly pointed out, religion was made to serve man, but man was not created to serve religion. As such religion must grow and its practices must bend to serve man. Only if we do so will our religion never become out-of-date and not decline and become antiquated like the Incas of South America.

SOLI B. MOTIVALA

Poona

I was amazed to read the fire spewed out by Bhagalia against Grant. Grant is an original thinker and because he does not toe a line blindly, he is considered to be a heretic and an infidel.

Zoroastrianism in general and the Gathas in particular mandate that a man should think for himself. It also mandates that progress is the watchword of Zoroastrianism.

Just because a man gives a different, but scientific, view he is not to be denigrated. Unless we question and analyze, we are going to flounder.

BEHRAM T. DASTUR

Bhagalia’s letter, criticizing Grant on his "rantings” about our religion, has quoted the religious practices of the Achemenians, Parthians and Sassanians which were nothing but ceremonial traditions of those times. What Grant has been pointing out is that if the "practice” is not more "practical” then it is redundant; like the dakhmas are redundant without vultures. Solar power only dries up the body (a form of slow cremation) which is then disposed of "somehow.”

We have dropped so many customs and traditions like "sitting apart” for ladies, keeping your head covered, etc only because they were no more practical and did not suit the times.

The religion of Zoroaster as written in the Gathas is pure and never outdated. It can be practised in any country at any time even in the future. By following the triad of good thoughts, words and deeds, we are true Zoroastrians.

MANIJEH WADIA

Poona