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The dead body had passed under the control of the evil spirit Ahriman; hence it had to be kept from the elements fire, water, earth. This custom of burial still prevails among the Parsees. For the precepts of the strict Mazdean creed cf. Vend. Farg. 6. 44 seq. (iv. 73); the corpse was fastened down to prevent polluting fragments being carried away. Heraclitus, who seems to have been acquainted with Mazdeism, left his dead body to be torn by dogs. Meyer, who quotes other instances (i. 12), thinks that Zoroaster has simply embodied in his creed the original usage as to the dead among the primitive Iranians (ib. 579). Cf. S. B. E. iv. 91 for a description of the Parsee ‘Dakhmas’, first called ‘Towers of Silence’ by an Irish journalist in Bombay (cf. letter in Times, Aug. 8, 1905). H. is quite right, however, in saying that these rules of burial were not observed by the ordinary Persian.
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