Show THE EMPIRE OF INDIA INDIAS S XH Religion of the Parsees I IBY BY FREDERIC J HASKIN Bomba India The Para Par ar are the I most mont distinct di and peculiar of the I many races which have ha e made their borne hom homIn In Jn India an 1 religion te Is t interesting i as all a survival of the early Aryan faith I Which held sway awa in General Asia APia when the lamp of burned hWU brightest I I in Persia They expo expose their dead to b deT devoured by vultures and the Ute sacred fire flee t w Is the emblem of or their highest t devotion These strikingly peculiar customs to together together gether ether with the supremacy c of or orthe the race in Bombay Bomba Invite the t c Interest tn t of every everT visitor to India Ind The fa races are followers follower of and believers in the sac writings of the Their pon WM wu founded twelve or centuries be De before Defore fore Christ and without many change cha remained the prevailing faith of Persia and Central Asia until the Mohammedan missionaries of the aWOld overthrew their nation and persecuted their religion In Inthe the th year ear m iTT a small body bod of Persian Penlan refu refugees refugee gees gee n fled d to India and were re welcomed by bythe bythe bythe the Hindu Hillda chief of Baroda Barock It wa was w then th that they assumed the cap shaped like 11 a horses houes hoof in token of submission to the rulers rulen of their tb lr adopted ad country Th ThY hY y lod ld a existence however did not rot assume importance until afur art r the English Bombay wh n the they given h n an opportunity to make uee ule of their thir th ir natural business bustnes sh shrene he e Pars means simply Persian and is isa Isa isa a radical name The religion te is correctly calle and anil te Is i known ae as a from the name ame of its great prophet Tho TIlt Z vr ta the sacred book of Persia Penta was waa not com completed completed until many centuries after the death of and the Parses Pa loii lo loto to the Hebrew prophet Daniel as 8 one of their greatest teachers Parsees stoutly deny den that they are fire worshipper despite the opinion of cen centuries centuries tune and the veneration which they ac accord accord accord cord to the sacred name flame me The original refugees from Persia brought the embers of ot the sacred fire from central Asia and the fires now ht in the Parse Parses tem tern temples Dies ples oJ of India are believed to have been kindled more than LlO years ago Ac According According According cording to the tenets tenet of the faith there are two spirits Masda or good and Deva Deya or evil which are arc constantly striving for the mastery Their hope and belief belle is that son aon of will be reincarnated and that he will destroy evil purify the world and make supreme This belief ie Ia I a her heritage heritage from the Jews through Daniel They believe in heaven and nd hell that conduct in life determines the future state of reward or punishment they deny the doctrine of reincarnation except in the case of the expected second coming coining of and they hold that duly per performed performed formed religious rites by the living help the souls of f their ancestors to happi happiness happiness ness ne The elements fire water and earth are revered as the gifts Ut of the good spirit and the he sun suo moon and star stars are also held sacred The more Ignorant classes cla worship the elements elemente and the celestial bodies as gods goda the tile higher hither classes consider them the holy gifts gift of the Supreme Good God Fire water and earth are re held hekl moat ID sacred sacr d in the order named The religion was corrupted by contact with Hinduism for many centuries but about three bunked years ago alfo there was wan fresh treb immigration from frolD Persia and the purity of ot the faith was wa restored In late years yeara under the Influence of the Occidental Occidental Occidental dental civilization there has baa been a move movement movement movement ment to differentiate the fire and other symbols from the higher worship and this has bas brought about a revival of study of the ancient Persian language and a closer organization of the religious bod body of the race face One thing must b be saW said hi of the Ui Parsers their mor morals are high and there is no blemish h upon u OU the conduct of at c their lives in their family relations as father faUter and son mother and daughter husband and wife The Parsees hav a high reputation as men of honor in business bu ines they will ful tin fin a contract to the th minute and the let letter letter ter But It Is ift wise for the other party to loot look loo sharp at the time the t contrat contra t is j sealed The body whence when e the soul has baa depart departed ed is i accounted impure and ADd unclean Therefore fire must not ba ha defiled by burning it water must not be defiled denied by casting it Into the sea Ilea or river and earth must not b be defiled by b burying it So the practice began years year ago lIfO of exposing the coffees to be eaten by bv birds and bets beasts This practice has been bet refined and systematized and Is Ia now BOW invested t l with the strict ceremonial e of or lain sm The Towers To er of Silence In Bombay Bomba ar aro the most mOlt Interesting lD thins things to be J seen n In m that Interesting city They stand at atthe atthe atthe the top of Malabar hill bill the highest point of ground on Bombay island There are five circular towers of from I to DO feet In circumference and about thirty feet in height Permission to visit aU the Tower compound Is IB easily obtained but no one is hi allowed to go 0 nearer than the flower garden pron which surrounds the Hou of Prayer at the gate gat Even the mourn mourners ers era in hi a funeral tran may not approach nearer than this Men set apart for the purpose despised by their coreligionists as a unclean take the body from rom th House Hou e of oi o where th the mourners I stand lIand with their the clothes cloth linked to thc r in token of grief They bear b the th body on a litter up tip the inclined which leads to an iron door a little more mUTe than halfway up op the side of the tower Only the tM these bearded car carriers carriers Hers of the dead are re permitted to enter ent the towers towe If Ir any an other person should see one of or the or in ined d he would be cursed with eternal et gerdi non on and arod Ms his descendants d stare share his ho woe inside Ineide the tower is wholly occupied l d by bya b bIL a IL circular gridiron sloping toward a cen en traI wall waIl and having three concentric rows of niches for bodies The inside Inde cir clr cm cle ci Is for fer children the next for Cor women w and the outer circle for men n The Th bod body carriers amen place their burden in one of the th niches remove the shroud and leave th body quite naked asked ked Then the waiting vultures swoop down from the sides sidell of the tower and from every neighboring tree treo tr 4 In I less than a i hour there is nothing left but the cleanly picked skeleton That is I permitted to re remain remaIn remain main for several veral da days s when ihen the body car carriers carriers rices again enter and throw the bones bon s into the great areat well at the center where they are left to await a alt the slow alow operation of the transformation of dust la tu dust duct t The tower is la roofless of course and for that reason receives the rain The Tile rain rainwater rainwater rainwater water is polluted by contact with whit the corpses and decaying 9 and end being one of the sacred elements It must be lM purified The towers towe are drained dral d into the central well 11 and aad from thence conduits conduit run out In tn four tour directions Under UDder the tower walls the water alar is filtered through several feet of charcoal and anel again agals at the end of oC the drain through a filter of send rand and gravel Thus purified the water waler is per permitted permitted to return again into the th earth and the sea a Of Or the five fire towers of silence at Bombay one Is reserved for the private use ow of ot the great family who built It and another for the use u e of the bodies of those tho e who have committed sui eni suicide cide or who have died unnatural deaths Western opinion concerning this method of disposing of corpses COrp ell Is divided some persons S advocating it U because e of Its un undoubted undoubted undoubted doubted sanitary perfection but most for foreign sign eign visitors look upon It ft with repugnance Even EveR the burning of the dead dMd on open pyres as is dose done do by the Hindus seems Ilesa less revolting l The white towers towe of themselves them elves sug suggest suggest gest pat nothing half so 50 as the thes s serried grave rows of a western w tem cemetery the th house boulle of oC prayer is a simple mple platform open at the sides and roofed rood over the garden is i beautiful the flowers of the tropic and the temperate sones and there is nothing in the appearance of ot the place to suggest anything unusual But there Is III always the whir of wings above a sound which banishes forgetful forgetfulness ness and insists insl ts upon constant contant conscious con clous peas ress of the purpose of this dread place Hundreds of hideous vultures sit around the rims rima of the towers forming a living border of black to the pure white of the structures The tress are alive with the great ugly birds and as far as the eye can see they are circling circling cir circling circling cling When hen the familiar cortege is seen wind winding log ing In up the long lon road that leads da to the top of the hill the vultures circle closer and closer so that when the procession has ha arrived within the compound the whole tribe of greedy scavengers is ia present The moment the body carriers deposit the corpse within and remove the shroud there is ill a mighty rush of wings and the th swift work of destruction is fa begun begu Strange and as It may seem It is ia even more pronounced when one drives about the streets of th the city and sees here and there a marble marMe statue of some orne Parsee benefactor whose who e body was eaten by those tho e very ery vultures when he sees ees at the bank or market or in the club cluba a wealthy and educated man men a knight of England perhaps who knows that his body will eventually be food for those same ame waiting birds Western poets have gloomily dwelt on the horrors horror of the grave and the ravages of the worm but time and custom have haye softened those tho e dread d ad pictures The living do not see I the grave worm at his work but the vulture swoops down upon his hIl prey In the open light Whatever one may think th of the towers tol of silence alinee and its It company of o blaek watchers a I visit to the place is some something er something thing never to be b forgot Tomorrow The Empire of India XIII XII Many Gods Gos and Many Creeds Creed |