Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water / The Journal of a Tour Through the British Empire and America

by Ethel Gwendoline Vincent

In the afternoon Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeeboy took us to the Parsee Towers of Silence.

Many think the rite of burial as performed by the Parsees by exposing the body on an open tower to be devoured by vultures, is not only wanting in respect to the dead, but is a revolting and disgusting feature of their religion. I know that the European inhabitants of Bombay cordially participate in the latter feeling. For ourselves, whatever we may have thought or heard previously, after visiting and having explained to us the Tower of Silence, we came away greatly impressed with the beauty of many of the thoughts it suggested. It can hardly be believed what living significance each act has, nor what tender and solemn thoughts rest around the poetic name of the "Tower of Silence."

Five round white towers stand in different parts of a garden, situated amid the palm-groves of the hill-top. It is surrounded on two sides by the sea, and the fresh salt breezes are for ever blowing over the peninsula, and rustling among the palm-trees, sighing in the utter stillness and silence of all around.

According to the Zoroastrian religion, earth, fire, and water are sacred, and very useful to mankind; and in order to avoid their pollution by contact with putrefying flesh, the faith strictly enjoins that the dead bodies shall not be buried in the ground, or burnt, or thrown into the sea, rivers, &c. Therefore, in accordance with these religious injunctions, the Towers of Silence are always situated on some hill or eminence away from the city. No expense is spared in their construction, that they may last for centuries without the possibility of polluting of the earth, or contaminating any living beings dwelling therein.

No single soul since the consecration and use of the towers has been allowed to go or see inside them, save only the corpse-bearers. These latter are men kept sacred for the purpose, and they are divided into two classes, named Nassalars and Khadhias. The former having gone through certain religious ceremonies, are alone privileged to carry the corpse into the towers, whilst the latter act as bearers at the funeral.

The model of the tower in the garden shows us their construction. There is a circular platform inside about 300 feet in circumference, which is entirely paved with stone slabs, and divided into three rows of shallow open receptacles, corresponding with the three moral precepts of the Zoroastrian religion, "good deeds," "good words," "good thoughts." The first row is for corpses of males; the second row is for corpses of females; the third row is for corpses of children. They diminish towards the centre in size. Footpaths are left for the corpse-bearers to move about on.

The clothes wrapped round the bodies are removed and destroyed by being cast into a pit of chloride of lime. "Naked we came into this world, and naked we ought to leave it," the Parsees maintain.

A deep central well in the tower, the sides and bottom of which are also paved with stone slabs, is used for depositing the dry bones. The corpse is completely stripped of its flesh by vultures within an hour or two of being deposited, and the bones of the denuded skeleton, when perfectly dried up by atmospheric influences and the powerful heat of the tropical sun, are thrown into this well, where they crumble into dust—thus the rich and the poor meet together on one level of equality after death.

To observe the tenet of the Zoroastrian belief, that "the mother earth shall not be defiled," this well is constructed on the following principle: there are holes in the inner sides of the well, through which the rain-water is carried into four underground drains at the base of the tower, for it must be remembered that the well, like the rest of the tower, is all exposed and open to the air. At the end of each of these drains pieces of charcoal and sandstone are placed to act as a filter, thus purifying the water before it enters into the ground.

The vultures (nature's scavengers) do their work much more expeditiously than millions of insects would do if dead bodies were buried in the ground. By this rapid process putrefaction, with all its concomitant evils, is most effectually prevented.