Parsi Renaissance

One looks with great admiration at the devotion shown by other communities towards their prophets, religion, their religious institutions and leaders. Such devotion can only come into our lives through education about the ancient history of our race and religion, our priesthood and religious institutions.

Hindus regard the Mahabharat and the Ramayan as the glorious history of their ancient Hindu kings and heroes. The Jews have the Old Testament. Zoroastrians have the Shahnameh of Firdausi. However, brainwashed by western scholars with a Christian agenda, we deem as fiction what is the mother lode of our most ancient history. The Shahnameh is replete with Zoroastrian teachings. It relates the exploits of the ancient Mazdayasni Zoroastrian Kings Jam­sheed, Faredoon, Kaikhushru and others, the great paladins Rustom, Sohrab, Aspandiar, Shiawak, Nariman whose names are mentioned in our scriptures. Our children should know that these great souls were our ancestors. Our history begins with King Jamsheed over 9,000 years ago and not in 359 BC with Cyrus the Great, as noted by western historians. King Jamsheed gave us the sudreh and kusti we wear today as our spiritual armor.

Our religion, like that of the Hindus, includes religious ceremonies, customs, traditions and practices based on the scriptures. Our ancestors had the wisdom to follow these for thousands of years giving them the force of religious law. These form the very basis of the Zoroastrian faith and a thousand generations of Zoroastrians have sworn and lived by them. It was to save these that Parsi Irani Zoroastrians left Iran for India some 1,300 years ago.

All scriptures are in the form of metaphor and allegory, to be understood through the heart not the head. Avesta is not a spoken language but a talismanic one of manthras like Sanskrit and Aramaic. Because of this, philological translations, especially by non-Zoroastrians, without religious understanding, are misleading. Our scriptures have been divinely composed by Prophet Asho Zarathushtra and succeeding Rainidars and Saoshyants under His authority, to suit the special needs of souls appearing on this earth at different periods of time. Their utterance with devotion brought power and blessing on the Iranian Empire, which lasted, with some interruptions, for over 8,000 years. They still bring beneficence to those who recite them and throughout the universe.

In the Hormazd Yasht for instance, we are advised that the only thing we have to do to seek His help is to recite His names, the names of the Ameshas­pands and the manthravani prayers. In every prayer there is "yazamaide” meaning "attunement,” which automatically aligns us with a particular spiritual entity in tune with the celestial music of Ahura Mazda. Almost every prayer has: "Az hama gunah patet pashemanum,” which is an automatic confession of our sins. Our manthravani prayers are replete on every page with the most powerful maha-manthras/nirangs in existence.

Parsi Irani Zoroastrian priests, descendants of the enlightened dasturs of old, have been the only true guardians of our scriptures and religion through the ages. It was they who brought our religion and scriptures to India. Through centuries of devotion, tradition and practice they are able, even today, to learn by heart and recite the entire Ijashni prayers, the Khordeh Avesta and the Gathas. Whatever their human failings, we must be grateful to them as our religion and scriptures are alive in them through their devotion.

There is nothing in the world like our consecrated fire temples with their sacred perpetually burning fires. And we do not have the religious equipment today to build any more. For Zoroastrians, this consecrated fire is the "Atash Puthra Ahurahe Mazdao” — the living "son” of Ahura Mazda himself as mentioned in the Atash Nyaesh. It is a great, sacred Yazatic energy, purifying the Zoroastrian "Khoreh.” It strengthens the bond between all Zoroastrians, linking us talismatically with the spiritual power station established by our Prophet himself in the unseen world. When Zoroastrians understand this, devotion is sure to arise and we will enter our fire temples with the highest veneration, respectfully clothed, after washing ourselves and reciting the kusti prayer. We will then be willing to protect our institutions, like other communities do, with our very lives.

Our consecrated dakhmas are, even in the western world, recognized as the most ecologically perfect system for disposal of the dead known to man. Zoroastrians must be re-educated regarding the supreme religious value of the dakhma for the onward journey of Zoroastrian souls. It is certain that when they know this they will never opt for cremation or burial. There would then be overwhelming public pressure to repair, refurbish and protect every dakhma in the land and great blessings will be showered on the community.

In the abovementioned aspects of our religion, Zoroastrians will once again have the fiery devotion of their forefathers. Our Parsi/Irani children will be proud of their elders and families and feel so secure in their own ancient race that they will not even think of intermarriage.

The strength of our devotion will be our sword and shield. It will engender moral, spiritual and physical power to those who feel it. Such power is endless and irresistible. With it, Zoroastrians can usher in a Renaissance, unknown in the past 200 years.

MEHLLI BHAGALIA

California, USA

What Vendidad says

Let our religious texts be given a proper airing to dispel the fug issuing from the arguments concerning the dakhmena­shini issue. We read the opinions of some highly placed legal luminaries while there is a deafening silence from the priests.

Given that the word for religious injunction is -dad,or better still -data (as in Vendi-dad and Vi-daevo-data), why is it that today’s clerics whose scholarly ancestors formulated the original laws concerning, amongst other matters, death and disposal of the dead, basing them on practice, custom and early beliefs, now steadfastly turn their backs on those very texts, and yet pray them in the course of the Vendidad ceremony? Do they not understand what they are praying? Do they not mean what they pray? Why are they playing at politics and as social engineers? Why, in turn, do legal practitioners not leave alone the clear directives of our religion, and cease tampering with what they very obviously have failed to grasp, or worse, even dismiss what does not suit?

Let us summarize the Vendidad’s dialogs on this subject which even its composers thought unsavory. Firstly, this learned priestly compilation could get its directives universally accepted only by invoking the highest authorities, namely Zarathushtra and Ahura Mazda. Thereafter they set down their laws in order of the priorities pertinent to them at the time — an important point to note since modern-day developments and improvements did not then exist. Secondly, the Vendidad itself shows change and reform in tracing the evolution and dismantling of the dakhmas. Thirdly, it shows full awareness of the advantages, dangers and precautions in the matter of disposal of human remains — all with a view to protect the living (including the nassessalars) and the bereaved, and not the deceased.

Much fanciful and mischievous explanation has been broadcast regarding the prayers to be recited at the bunglis. In the Vendidad it is the Gathas which are to be utilized for

the cleansing of corpse-bearers and those accidentally contaminated;

for purifying the route to the dakhmas; for the comfort and sustenance through the difficult mourning period of the bereaved. On this last point, the Gathas are always thrice recited, and the actual upamana times are carefully listed in Chapter XII. So much for the gibes of the Gatha-only-ists! For those who hold the Gathas themselves as their prime religious authority, these items cannot go unremarked. For those who enquire genuinely into the Gathic teachings, it straightaway becomes obvious that Zarathushtra’s precepts for the affirmation and progress of life are being misused through recitation over the remains of the departed — the formulas for life being chanted over the dead!

To forestall twaddle about preparations for the next life, let our enthusiasts be reminded that in any case such prayers come too late, for in life the individual was deemed solely responsible and fully accountable for his/her thoughts, utterances and works, and furthermore no priest can intercede or pretend to effect a postmortem switch of final destinations. This is a prime teaching in our Gathas. The three days and nights’ sojourn of the deceased’s soul chanting by the corpse again reflects Gathic misuse, but then these deeply ingrained beliefs have long since lost their original basis. There is therefore no valid reason why prayers cannot be recited for the bereaved whose departed ones had opted for alternative methods of disposal of their remains.

The priesthood should be confronted with their own texts and challenged to publicly give a truthful account of what really transpires in them anent the dakhmas. The Vendidad has unambiguously spelt out the exact requirements for their siting, as also for their advantages and perils – the stench and diseases arising, and not least for the abandonment and dismantling of these funerary structures. Nowhere do we find fetishist nonsense about 301 nails: there may as well be 1,001; which brings us to our last point: the legendary perfumes of Arabia were compounded precisely to disguise unwelcome smells. The smell of fish or fowl on sale for human consumption is that of freshly caught and killed produce for this purpose. Not so the stench of decaying human remains.

If the Dhun Barias of this world are causing acute irritation in some quarters, it is only because they are speaking (and showing) the truth, and if that is not a prime Zoroastrian virtue, then our much-lauded Prophet had indeed wasted his earthly life telling us so!

FARROKH VAJIFDAR

London, UK