“Insulting the community”

I am appalled by Rustom M. K. Dabu’s attempt to discredit the Vandidad on dakhmas through some strategy that places Ervad Karkhanawala and Messrs L. C. Parks and H. R. Kenwood at the forefront of his curious rant ("Insulting the community,” Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, May 7, 2011). Dabu demands a simple, scientific explanation from me. Here it is:

Firstly, the learned priests who compiled the Vandidad for both priestly colleagues from those distant times and its lay audiences had their sights firmly on rural dakhmas. Their science grew up in the shadow of the temple. Their scientific approach to a clearly recognized problem of disposal of the dead was based on the need to separate the dead from the living. Hence they recommended that dakhmas be situated on high ground well away from human habitation and activity. The dakhma constructions in Bombay satisfied both counts, but not any more!

Secondly, the khwarshed nigerishnih was allowed to complete its natural work before the largely skeletal remains were shoveled into the central well or bhandar. The addition of lime to speed the process of disposal was unknown in Iran and Greater/Outer Iran. The Vandidad does not designate separate shallow slots for men, women and children, or any of the elaborate paraphernalia surrounding the Bombay structures. Khwarshed nigerish­nih simply does not function as it should from June to August. Also, do the surreptitiously buried remains outside the dakhmas not give rise to worms, maggots and other unfriendly beasties? Or is all this meant to be a "reformist” tissue of lies?

Thirdly, Dabu’s topsy-turvy chronology adds to his confusion over the reality of the situation today — hence my earlier statement that the system had irretrievably broken down. The distinguished scientific names he drops are undoubtedly right on every point, save that the Vandidad’s authors had anticipated them by some 1,500 years. The scientific language Dabu craves from me was anteceded in that sanitary text, and I shall forbear from burdening Parsiana with reproducing references given in earlier correspondence plus an article they had generously printed.

Fourthly, Dabu seems intent on bluffing his way through his fractured argumentation by invoking a Vandidad reference — Fargard 8.2 and purportedly quoting from it. Good procedure, except that what he gives is not to be found in any Vandidad edition whatever. It is clearly a case of potanu jori kahriu — "he has supplied his own text!” If at all it refers to a dakhma, it’s about the method to be employed when a human or a canine dies in a timber-frame dwelling. Nowhere do we find any reference here to Zoroastrians wishful for dakhma disposal.

Fifthly, to restrain Dabu from embarrassing himself further, I would refer him instead to the Vandidad passages which stress that dakhmas are places of the greatest contagion and should be demolished after last proper use when the land on which they stood are to remain unusable for 50 years. Should he require further scientific evidence, then I point him to Fargards 3.3; 3.9; 3.12-13; 7.55-59 (which anticipate Modena-type plagues), etc.

Sixthly, Karkhanawala’s strange attempt at equating an atash bahram fire with a corpse-burning fire, and Dabu’s mindless repetition of it shows only too well how a spiritual reverence to fire has been shunted off into a purely dhongidox fetishist worship. Even a casual perusal of the Vandidad on the 16 fires, each graded and each "refined” before it can reach atash bahram grade, would have helped him avoid this appalling blunder. Perhaps it was bluff?

Seventhly, whilst the forefathers could be traced back to the Vandidad’s wise compilers, I am at a loss to understand Dabu’s kiss-off mentioning "their children” — whose children, pray, and why are they invoked in connection with his silly adult games? To me it smacks of his chronic confusion.

FARROKH VAJIFDAR

London, UK

f.vajifdar@btinternet.com