“The ban on meat”

I was happy to see an extract from Dastur (Dr) M. N. Dhalla’s An Autobiography ("The ban on meat,” Parsiana, June 7, 2006). For the benefit of your readers I am quoting from his Autobiography (pp 600-601) to convey his views on dakh­me­nashini:

"Times are changing. The population of modern cities exceeds 50-75,00,000 and is constantly increasing. Due to this even burial is gradually becoming impossible. Since the end of the last century a protest has been raised against it in the West. The newly-enlightened system of turning the corpse to ashes through ‘crematorium’ is acclaimed by sensible people as the most rapid and most hygienic way of disposing the rotting and diseased corpses.

"Fifty years ago, when the crematorium movement began in the West, there was a strong protest against it. Bishops and priests started a regular jihad against it. Priests openly refused to perform the final rites of those who scorned public opinion and cremated the bodies of their dear departed ones. Eventually the bishops and the priests have had to relent. Now they give extreme unction to those who are to be cremated. Today many great ones are openly cremated. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the High Priest of the entire Protestant Church was cremated in public only last year according to his own wishes.

"In the recent events that occurred in Poona to bury the dead, our dasturs and mobeds have refused to perform the geh sarna ceremony. Like the priests, our Zoroastrian dasturs and mobeds of the East will have to surrender. Dakhme­nashini is not a system created by Almighty — it is a man-made system. The system of disposing the corpse has been rendered a sacred custom because of its practice for 3,000 years. Yet, even its 3,000-year-old tradition of sanctity has not endowed it with immortality. With the change of times and circumstances its sway has come to an end. Dakhme­nashini is merely a tradition. Tradition is not religion. In understanding, digesting and acknowledging this fact lies the wisdom of all concerned.

"There is sanity in allowing each to do as he wishes with regard to dakhme­nashini, burial or crematorium. It is the birthright of the new age.”

KERSEE KABRAJI

Poona