The traditional way of disposing of a corpse in India and Iran has been the dakhma, or tower of silence. This is a circular stone building open at the top, usually set on a barren hill. The inside is arranged in three circles. The outer circle is for men, the middle for women, and the inner circle for children. Only corpse handlers may enter the building. They carry the body to the building, pause outside for mourners to say their last goodbyes, and then take the body inside and place it on a stone slab, where it is left to be devoured by vultures. The mourners withdraw to pray and then return home, where they pray and ritually bathe to cleanse themselves of the pollution of death.
Throughout the following year the family offers appropriate prayers for the dead. In recent times Zoroastrians have had to find other methods of disposing of their dead. Dakhmas are now in use mainly in parts of western India, where the custom was established before the 1800s. The most traditional Zoroastrians around the world may return their dead to their home country, where they can be placed in a dakhma. Newer Parsi communities in India now have burial grounds and Iranian Zoroastrians now use burial as well. Zoroastrians in other parts of the world may also use modern methods of cremation. Today’s Zoroastrians reason that the prayers and rituals surrounding death are more important than the disposal of the body, so the least polluting method is considered appropriate.
At dawn on the third day after death the soul goes to meet the three judges, Mithra, Sraosha, and Rashnu. They judge the soul on its actions in life. It then passes on to the Chinvat Bridge, the Bridge of the Separator. There it meets its daena, the guide who will take it across. She represents the person’s conscience in life. If that life has been righteous daena is beautiful beyond all imagining and is accompanied by a sweet-smelling breeze. If the life has been one of ignorance and evil the guide is an ugly hag with a foul odor. The two move across the bridge. For the righteous the bridge is wide and fl at and leads into eternal joy. For the wicked it becomes narrower and narrower until it is a knife blade, and the wicked soul falls off into the pit of hell.
Dualism in Zoroastrianism: Dialectic of Good and Evil
