On Wednesday, 9th October, the Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons, Ratan Naval Tata passed away at the age of 86 at Breach Candy Hospital following age-related health conditions.
Ratan Tata was admitted in hospital on Monday but he turned down reports that said his health is in critical conditions and appealed the well-wishers to not spread misinformed reports. However, after being admitted in the hospital, Ratan Tata was shifted to ICU wehere he passed away.
Ratan Tata belonged to a family of Parsis and he followed the Zoroastrian religion. Parsis follow a unique form of funeral method. This traditional process of funeral in known as Dokhmenashini and is also known as Tower of Silence. In this method, the dead body of a person is neither buried nor cremated.
What is Tower of Silence?
Tower of Silence also known as dakhma, is a circular, raised structure built by Zoroastrians for excarnation. In this process human bodies are exposed to vultures and other scavengers in order to enable the decomposition of the body. This structure helps in avoiding contamination of the soil and other natural elements. Vultures and other scavengers, consume the flesh. Following this, the skeletal remains are gathered into a central pit where further weathering and breakdown takes place.
Parsi people follow this method of funeral because in their religion it is believed that fire, water and earth are sacred elements and they should not be polluted by the contact of dead bodies. They believe that the dead bodies are overtaken by darkness because of which it can contaminate these sacred elements by coming in contact with them. For this reason, they do not burry or cremate the bodies.
After all the prayers and rituals, the bodies are taken to the tower of silence by the pallbearers also known as Nassesalars. The bodies are kept in the Tower of silence so that they can get decomposed by the vultures. This form of funeral is considered as a charitable act that nourishes other creatures. However, after 1990, with the decline in the number of vultures, many Parsis began to use electric crematorium.