So careful are the Parsees of their national honor that in the whole island of Bombay there exists neither paupers nor prostitutes among the followers of this religion. Polygamy is unknown among them. A wife can only be put away for immoral conduct. She is tried by the Punchayet or Parsee court, and if found guilty repudiated amid the whole assembly; formerly she was put to death.
The ceremonies attending the death of a Parsee are very singular. When a person is about to die he is conveyed to the ground-floor, washed in consecrated water, and his face anointed with holy oil. A lamp or lamps lighted from the sacred fire in the temple are placed by the dying man's bed, and priests stand before him with folded arms crossed on their breasts, and pray for him in a most earnest and beautiful chant. When life becomes quite extinct the body is clothed in a new white cotton shirt of nine seams and a sort of apron, which is thrown over the face. This is bound by a new and sacred girdle of seventy-two threads. The body is then placed on an oblong stone on the floor.
But the most curious part of all is, that along with the Fire-priests the house-dog is brought in, and after they have offered up prayer and praise in the presence of the assembled family, the dog is taken up to the dead body of his friend and master and exhorted to conduct him safely into paradise. If the dog should lick affectionately, as heretofore, the face, or even hands or feet, of his dead friend, it is held as a most auspicious sign of the dead man's ready admittance into heaven. It is but just to add here that the more refined and intelligent Parsees have outgrown this absurd custom and superstition; but the more ignorant certainly believe that every dog has an angel spirit residing in some star, whence it issues forth to convey the souls of the good safely into heaven.[26]
When the time for the removal of the body approaches, lamps lighted from the sacred fires burn around the corpse. The priests stand face to face with the dead, singing praises to the immortal Light; finally, their last prayer or exhortation to the dead soul is chanted. This done, the body, covered with white garments, the hands crossed on the breast, is laid on a long open bier. A number of priests robed in pure white carry the bier to the dohkma or tower of silence, and there the long procession of friends and relatives stand in a circle praying with arms folded, heads bowed, and lips moving silently, while the Fire-priests place the dead body on a long slide and slip it on the iron gratings of this strange circular tomb, to be devoured by birds of prey.
On the third day they pray again in the Fire-temple that the soul of the dead may ascend to heaven, for, according to their sacred books, on the third day "he reaches Mithra (Sun-god), rising above the mountains resplendent in his own spotless purity;" then he comes to the bridge of the "Gatherer" where he is asked as to the conduct of his soul while living in the world. If he is pure, a beautiful, tall, swift spirit, called Serosh, comes thither with a dog, a nine-knotted hook, and the twigs of the "Barsom;" these things are considered efficacious for keeping off evil spirits and guiding him over the heavenly bridge (Chinvat). Here a most exquisite form meets him, lovely and smiling, and when he questions the beautiful maiden, "Who art thou shining so brightly on the wide shore?" she replies, "I am all thy good works, pure thoughts, and pure words, O man." She then takes his hand, leads him smiling and joyous to the archangel Yohoo mano, who rises from his golden throne and speaks thus to the soul: "How happy it is that you have come here to us from mortality to immortality!" Then the soul goes joyfully to Ahura-Mazda, and resides for ever with the immortal saints, praising the unbegotten, self-created Light.
Though the Fire-worshippers believe in the resurrection, they do not hold that it is to be made in the same body; their reverence therefore follows the soul, and not the body deserted by its spiritual tenant, while their reverence for the earth, water, and fire is so profound that they hold burial, cremation, or even casting the ashes into the waters, a sacrilege against the elements. The original idea in exposing the body to the weather was Brahmanic—that of absorption by the elements. The dead body was restored to the sun, air, and sky, to be reunited and launched on the bosom of that "vast Illimitable" whence it had sprung.
The Parsees also hold all birds sacred, as a sort of spiritual agent of universal purification, through whose agency all gross, unclean substances pass into healthy conditions. For these reasons the towers of silence which receive the dead spoil are open to the sky, and by means of the bird of prey it re-enters almost immediately into the domain of life and health and purity.
From the universal testimony of pagan or Christian travellers we find that the Fire-worshippers of India are thought to be more honorable in their dealings with one another, and even with strangers, than the generality of Asiatics, and even than those peoples professing Christianity. They rarely resort to written contracts, as their word is the best bond. Benevolence is said to flow in their veins, so conspicuous have they become for their love of charity. The Rev. Mr. Avington, during his stay at Surat so early as 1698, bore testimony to the fact that the Parsees there were ever more ready to provide for the comfort and support of the poor and suffering than even the Christians; and this reputation they bear to this day in India. The Bombay government voted thanks so far back as 1790 to Sorabjee Muncherjee, who during the scarcity that prevailed at that time daily fed at his own expense two thousand people, comprising Jews, Christians, Mohammedans, and Hindoos. Mrs. Graham, in her journal of a residence in India, declares that she was enraptured with the simplicity, purity, and never-ceasing kindliness of the Parsee community; and every one in India is familiar with the name of that very prince of benevolence and kindliness, the venerable Parsee baronet Sir Jamsetjee Jeeboy, knighted by the queen of England for his unbounded charities, which are not only unsurpassed, but without a parallel, in ancient or modern times. He has done more in his lifetime for Western India, in feeding the poor, releasing unhappy prisoners for debt, building causeways, founding schools and colleges for the education of all castes and conditions of men and women, erecting hospitals for the relief of the suffering poor, benevolent institutions for the deformed, spacious resting-places, or dhurrum-salas, for weary travellers in all parts of India, stupendous aqueducts, wells, and tanks, than any other single individual, or even the East India Company, for the benefit of mankind. Connected with the Grant Medical College of Bombay is the noble hospital, the gift of this Parsee baronet; and only a few years ago his family erected a hospital for incurables near it. An ophthalmic hospital has been opened and endowed by another liberal Parsee, Cowasjee Jehangheer.
The late Sir Jamsetjee commenced life in Bombay at the early age of twelve as a street peddler, selling old bottles, and was called "Bottle-wallah" to the day of his death.