Readers' Forum
“Move with the times”
I totally agree with B. T. Dastur’s views expressed in "Move with the times” (Readers’ Forum, Parsiana, January 7, 2012) regarding the practice of debarring non-Parsis from paying their last respects to their dear departed friends, colleagues, and nowadays, their Parsi relatives.
The mumbo-jumbo about the corpse being made impure is the creation of a sick mind and has no basis in Zoroastrian ashoi. My late mother used to tell me that right up to the 1920s when it was the practice to have the geh sarna ceremony performed at home, the body was taken to the dakhma on foot by khandhias with the face open for all to see. It was only after the 1920s that this practice stopped.
It was my father’s explicit wish that after his funeral prayers were done and his body brought out, his face should be shown to all members of our very wide circle of non-Parsi friends and acquaintances, colleagues and students. I requested the person in charge at Doongerwadi to do so but he vehemently refused to accede to my request saying that there is no provision to do so and even if he should permit it the mobeds who rule the roost at Doongerwadi would certainly put their foot down against my "sacrilegious request.”
It is about time the voice of reason is heard. What does not change stagnates. We are stuck in Sasanian times when more importance was given to rituals and holy baths and scant attention paid to the teachings of our Prophet Zarathushtra who never differentiated between man and man, but only between man of good mind and man of evil mind.
DARA M. KHODAIJI
dara_mk@hotmail.com
The mumbo-jumbo about the corpse being made impure is the creation of a sick mind and has no basis in Zoroastrian ashoi. My late mother used to tell me that right up to the 1920s when it was the practice to have the geh sarna ceremony performed at home, the body was taken to the dakhma on foot by khandhias with the face open for all to see. It was only after the 1920s that this practice stopped.
It was my father’s explicit wish that after his funeral prayers were done and his body brought out, his face should be shown to all members of our very wide circle of non-Parsi friends and acquaintances, colleagues and students. I requested the person in charge at Doongerwadi to do so but he vehemently refused to accede to my request saying that there is no provision to do so and even if he should permit it the mobeds who rule the roost at Doongerwadi would certainly put their foot down against my "sacrilegious request.”
It is about time the voice of reason is heard. What does not change stagnates. We are stuck in Sasanian times when more importance was given to rituals and holy baths and scant attention paid to the teachings of our Prophet Zarathushtra who never differentiated between man and man, but only between man of good mind and man of evil mind.
DARA M. KHODAIJI
dara_mk@hotmail.com
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