Towers of Silence
15 hours ago
- #Conservation
- #Mumbai
- #Zoroastrianism
- A 55-acre forest in Mumbai, protected by a religious community, serves as a sacred space where Parsis practice ancient death rituals.
- Towers of Silence (dakhmas) are circular, roofless stone structures where Parsis place their dead to avoid contaminating sacred elements like fire, water, and earth.
- Vultures, crucial for the sky burial ritual, have nearly vanished due to poisoning from the veterinary drug Diclofenac, leading to a crisis in the Parsi community.
- Efforts to replace vultures with solar panels for decomposition have been met with mixed success and controversy.
- Conservationists are breeding endangered vultures in captivity, but their release depends on banning toxic drugs and safer environmental conditions.
- The Parsi community debates modern alternatives like cremation, fearing the loss of their traditional burial grounds to urban development.