Disposal of the dead

I have been reading with interest the discussion on how to dispose of the dead after the sharp drop in the vulture population and have been waiting to see if the dasturs, ervads and other Parsi scholars come up with a solution from the sacred scriptures at hand. Although clear and quoted several times, no one seems to have paid any attention to the point I am going to elaborate on.

Let me make it clear that I fully believe that the system of disposal of the dead by Zoroastrians is the natural way. That is how corpses are disposed of — from that of the tiny ant to the huge elephant on land, from the smallest fish to the largest whale in the water. Divinely guided nature has its own efficient scavengers that keep the environment clean. Mammals on land have mostly vultures and canids which act as good and fast scavengers. My own experiences in Iran, India and Brazil have shown that about 30 vultures finished a water buffalo and left the bones white in about three hours, buzzards had whitened the bones of a cow when we arrived at the scene, and hyenas ate corpses of animals killed on highways across jungles.

The Vendidad refers to four means of disposal: corpse-eating dogs and corpse-eating birds to finish the flesh, ossuaries (astodans) to contain the clean dried bones, and if the above three are not possible, sunrays to dry the corpse until a solution is found. There are ruins of mountain summit depositories and ossuaries from the Sassanian and post-Sassanian days all over Iran. Besides those in Azarbaijan, Kurdistan, Isfahan, Hamadan and Pars, I have visited astodans in the southern Laristan mountains close to the Persian Gulf coast.

In modern times, in cities like Bombay, Poona and Surat in India, and Tehran, Yazd and Kerman in Iran, dakhmenashini was the practical answer. It provided the enclosure in which vultures could do the job and the bones had a depository. There was no need for the "corpse-eating wild dogs.” Times have changed. Dakhmas were closed voluntarily by the Zarathoshti community in Iran because of certain reasons. The dakhmas in India are facing a shortage of vultures, and the sun-drying (khurshed nigarishni) device is not working.

What all of us should turn to are the corpse-eating dogs. I propose that the Parsi anjumans, led by knowledgeable mobeds, consider using the abandoned tradition of wild dogs. Experience in Iran and India has proved that hyenas are the best.

Here is what the Wikipedia, a free Internet encyclopedia says: "Hyenas or hyænas are moderately large terrestrial carnivores native to Africa and the Indian subcontinent. They are members of the family Hyaenidae. Although hyenas bear some physical resemblance to wild dogs, they make up a separate biological family which is most closely related to Herpestidae (the family of mongooses and meerkats). The hyena has one of the strongest jaws in the animal kingdom and an adult of the species has only the large cats of the family Felidae (lions, tigers, etc) to fear. An adult hyena’s bite pressure can reach 800 pounds per square inch; it can crush bone.” We can see them in our city zoos.

An enclosure within the existing dakhma grounds, not disturbing the neighborhood, could hold the required number of hyenas to take care of the dead body just as the Vendidad says. I think this is a very practical and natural solution and conforms to the Zoroastrian tradition.

ALI A. JAFAREY

California, USA