The Legitimacy of the Vendidād By Er. Jal Dastur and Er. Faredoon Dastur
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Parsis, Iranis, Zarathushtis, All Under One Roof
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Dear Ervads Jal and Faredoon Dastur,
I am amazed that you answered (without mentioning that it was an answer) to
the obviously non-priestly, non-scholastic points in my rejoinder to Jalji’s
contentions about the Vendidad, sky-burial, conversion etc.
I absolutely agree with you that we should place the dates of the prophet
Zarathustra to around the 16 th to 14 th Centuries BC. Very many renowned
scholars, mostly through linguistic analysis, inexact though that can be, concur.
However, the same linguistic analysis puts the combination of old and young
Avesta, the languages of the Vendidad, to around 800BC – which pre-dates the
empires of Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes.
For my part, I don’t wish to attribute to the first and originating prophet of
monotheism, the one who preached the profound doctrines of the Truth and
the Lie, the labour of formulating particular, fastidious and even sometimes
ridiculous and symbolic rituals. Those were clearly formulated not by Him but
by your forebears of your profession and calling, the priests, the Magi.
In the other religion that the Zoroastrian Magi endorsed, it’s Popes and the
hierarchy of priests who specify this or that ritual – Christ didn’t formulate or
prescribe them. As far as my assessment of civiliation goes, I think Zarathustra
and Christ were above such triviality and didn’t formulate or practice much
ritual or approve of it — apart from the symbolic purification through baptism –
the invention of Jesus’ cousin John. But that’s poetry in action.
Even so, let’s take your arguments as you set them out. You say the Vendidad
was the divine prescription of Big Z himself. Fine. Its verse prescribes sky-burial
so as not to pollute nature. When I pointed out that the Zoroastrian emperors
had tombs you asserted that their corpses were sealed in iron caskets so the
Vendid’s teaching was observed.
What puzzles me is that I don’t think anyone has seen any iron caskets emerge
from the dakhmas of this world after the vultures have eaten the flesh off the
dead bodies and left the bones, hair and nails to fall into the depths of the
earth. So no sealed caskets? This surely contradicts the ‘purity’ injunction –
dead bones and the rest in contact with the earth!
So it follows that any priest who has participated in the funeral of a Parsi who
was sky-buried on a dakhma, say anywhere in India, is therefore guilty of
contradicting what you Dasturs say is the teaching of Zarathustra himself.
Oh dear. If the Vendidad is part of the Truth, then presiding over the ceremony
to defy it’s prescription would be condemned by Zarathustra as part of the Lie
and participants in such activity would surely be condemned as agents of
Ahreman. True?
Of course, if you follow the scholars who date the Vendid as the work of Magi
and not the divinely inspired word of Zarathustra, then this condemnation
doesn’t apply. Phew!
I don’t mean in any way to condemn the use and purposes of ritual. I grew up
in the household of my mother’s ‘Dastuir caste’ family and ritual was part of
it’s daily, year-round existence. I think I understand it uses, though not it’s
exploitation for loot or for falsehoods.
I am sure some of the belief and practice of ritual is fundamentally reassuring
to mortals. I am equally sure that some other of it is pure B S (or should that be
CU?—Cow’s Urine?) with a veneer of specious ‘scholarship’ exploiting the
believers.
Mr. Dhondy, I’ve long admired your writing. However, you’ve married outside the Zoroastrian community, resulting in children who are, in effect, a net loss to the community you profess to cherish. Consequently, you have no standing to offer commentary on this matter.
I’m curious to know how a man of your evident erudition and pride in his heritage feels about his apparent inability to instill this in his offspring. Your great grandchildren will be for sure deracinated and clueless about the Daena.
Your commentary exudes disgust to me as you weave around sentences making no sense – quite frankly, I feel ashamed to even say that at one time you were a Parsi. Mocking at our religion by using acronyms such as BS and doubling down by saying its cow’s urine makes you a very pathetic fellow.
You daringly mentioned in your unfounded dissertation:
“What puzzles me is that I don’t think anyone has seen any iron caskets emerge
from the dakhmas of this world after the vultures have eaten the flesh off the
dead bodies and left the bones, hair and nails to fall into the depths of the
earth. So no sealed caskets? This surely contradicts the ‘purity’ injunction –
dead bones and the rest in contact with the earth!
So it follows that any priest who has participated in the funeral of a Parsi who
was sky-buried on a dakhma, say anywhere in India, is therefore guilty of
contradicting what you Dasturs say is the teaching of Zarathustra himself.”
This is simply nothing but a ludicrous argument as not only the procedure of placing a body at a Dakhma is elaborated in the Vendidad, but so is the procedure regarding the disposal of the remains of the body after the vultures have eaten the flesh. You may have heard the famous quote, “When you assume, you make an ass out of you and me”, but in this case, you’re left alone hanging onto a sickly branch.
Enough said! May Ahura Mazda bring you to the right path. But then again, reading NS Pseudonymwalla’s comment, need I say anything more.
I hope this message finds you well and not to bombard you alongside other replies here Farrukh, but I find a very simple answer to your reply.
While I agree with all that was said in the other replies, perhaps I might avoid the use of the word pathetic… but you are mocking your own community so people may make of that what they will.
Anyways, to keep it brief and to the point of my reply, aside from what the respectable Jal Dastur has commented on the “iron caskets” I will point you directly back to the article itself.
You may also look this up on Encyclopedia Iranica, to show that it is not the bias of just one article.
https://iranicaonline.org/articles/astodan-ossuary
The bones collected from a Tower of Silence / Dakhma are put into an Astodan (english: ossuary). Us Zarathushti have been aware of what an Astodan is for a long time.
So that is very simply put, they are placed into a receptacle, whether it be an iron casket or a stone box, the bones are not buried into the earth and thus we have always practiced in accordance with the Videvdad/Vendidad. I truly do fail to see the contradiction.
Ushta te!
This reply was sent early and not my complete message, would like this deleted please as it’s extremely similar to my revised one, thanks in advance.
I hope this message finds you well and not to bombard you alongside other replies here Farrukh, but I find a very simple answer to your reply.
While I agree with all that was said in the other replies, perhaps I might avoid the use of the word pathetic… but you are mocking your own community so people may make of that what they will.
Aside from what the respectable Jal Dastur has commented on the “iron caskets” I will point you directly back to the article itself.
You may also look this up on Encyclopedia Iranica, to show that it is not the bias of just one article.
( https://iranicaonline.org/articles/astodan-ossuary )
The bones collected from a Tower of Silence / Dakhma are put into an Astodan (english: ossuary). This is mentioned in the article above as well.
Us Zarathushti have been aware of what an Astodan is for a long time.
So that is very simply put, they are placed into a receptacle, whether it be an iron casket or a stone box, ornate or simple.
The bones are not buried into the earth and thus we have always practiced in accordance with the Videvdad/Vendidad. I truly do fail to see the contradiction.
Also, you mentioning Jesus “Christ” of Nazareth is completely irrelevant to illustrate a point about ritualism. Please I beg of you do not compare him to the righteous, joyous Zarathushtra!
That reference in your reply only served to show other Zoroastrians your favorability of Christianity and other religions like it.
Ushta te!