Final Project

Early Zoroastrians afterlife and funeral customs

In Zoroastrians beliefs, a human being was composed of a physical being and a spiritual
existence. They believed when a person dies, his physical body dies but his spiritual part
continues to live. The fate of a person after his death is determined by his karma when he/her
was alive. Their motto was good thoughts good words and good deeds. They believed a persons
soul creates its hell or heaven; therefore it was not a physical place known to religions like Islam.
The soul continues to stay until the end of time which it reunites with god.
After a person dies, Zoroastrians believe evil spirits try to attack the soul and body of the passed
person; therefore cleaning rituals were preformed to keep the evil spirits away from the deceased
persons body, and soul. When a dead body decays it causes disease and contamination so their
belief in performing cleaning rituals can be seen as a way to avoid the contamination caused by
the corpse.
The soul of the dead is believed to stay with the body for three days before it starts to leave the
body. Zoroastrians do not eat or cook meat during this period. At the morning of the fourth day,
it is believed that the soul crosses a bridge named chinavat bridge based on their karma when
being alive. Their soul passes the bridge to heaven or falls to hell. The word chinavat is derived
from a combination of the Avestan chinaeta or Pahlavi chitan, meaning to arrange or lay as in
bricklaying and the verbal root vid meaning knowledge or recognition. The conclusion is that the
Chinvat Bridge is constructed over a lifetime of attaining wisdom and goodness.


Zoroastrians believe the bridge is where a person's actions thoughts and deeds get evaluated.
Their past life karma determines the width of the Chinavat bridge. If a person's life were based
on good deeds thoughts and actions the bridge would be wide, and their soul can cross the bridge
easily and enter a state of light and song known as garo-demana (house of song) or heaven. If he
has sins, the bridge will become narrow to the point that his soul cannot cross the bridge and
would fall into darkness or, drujo-demana (house of lies/abode of liars).
Zoroastrian funeral ceremonies are simple and emphasize on cleanliness. They believe that
Death is equal for every person regarding their wealth and social importance. They do not
believe in building monuments or mausoleums to keep the memory of their loved ones; instead
they keep them alive in their heart and soul.
In the early days, the funeral ceremonies were conducted after the person died usually within six
hour as they believed the body would start to decay after six hours. Family members or close
friends started to prepare a funeral service. The priest is called to pray for the deceased past sins.
An important preparation which is made is the washing of a sudrah.Sudrah a white cotton cloth
which will be put on the body after the ritual bath. A white sheet will be used as a shroud and
two additional white cotton bed sheets will be placed under and over the body.
The ritual bath of the deceased body is performed by an even number of family members who
know the procedure. The washing was performed using gomez known as urine in ancient Persian
language followed by the use of well water. The gomez acted as an anti-bacterial disinfectant
cleaning the corps and preventing infectious diseases. When gomez was not available, ash was
used instead.

After the body is washed, family members dress the body in the sudrah and a white cap is placed
on its head. Then the kusti prayers are read, the nearest relative, wraps a kusti, the girdle worn by
Zoroastrians after initiation, around the body. The body is then placed on the sheet; two family
members will sit close to the body and say prayers close to the ear of the deceased. Other family
members and friends approach the body and pay their last respects.
The body is then given to nasa-salars. They are people that had taken a ritual bath, performed the
kushti prayers and are wearing white clothes and white gloves. Nasa salar means caretaker of
nasa. Nasa is known as things causing contamination and disease. The nasa salars takes the body
to the corner front of the room. He wraps the body in a shroud and marks a three space distance
around the body not to be entered by others. There was a belief that the distance of three spaces
would prevent infection from the corps. The nasa-salars would wait for the end of the prayers
made by the priests.
There was a special four-eyed dog. A Dog that had two eye liked spots above his eyes. It was
used to confirm the death of the person. The ritual was called sagdid or dog-sight. The dog could
confirm if the person was in a coma or was dead. This ritual was an important ritual and could
ensure the person's death in lack of todays technology, and death certificates. The dog test was
performed three times during the funeral process.
After the prayers, the body was arranged to be placed in the tower of silence, the nasa-salars
entered the place carrying an iron bier. They placed the body on a bier and tied it with a string.


Even numbers of nasa-salars carry the body to the tower. Family members and friends followed
the nasa salars. At the tower, the body was placed on a marble platform, and a final sagdid was
performed. After the sigdad, the salars took the body into the tower of silence where nobody else
had the permission to enter. The body was placed in the tower before sunset in order to be bathed
by the sun. The clothes were removed from the body and disposed in a pit.
Zoroastrians principle for the laying to rest of their dead was that the environment (land, air, and
water, as well as the element of fire, ) should not be polluted, and the living should not be
harmed in any way. As we know cremation pollutes the fire, the air, and at times river water, as
well. Burial without adequate lining of the grave will pollute the ground, ground waters, and the
surrounding lands. Ancient Zoroastrians choose to use the Towers of silence, or dakhmas as their
way of burying their dead, dakhamas were circular walled stone structures, inside which bodies
of the deceased were exposed to birds that eat flesh. The remaining bones were dried by the sun.
The dried bones were then collected and placed in a well where they naturally turn into a
powder. The towers were built on hill tops and were often surrounded by gardens.
This method had several advantages:
In the drier regions where fertile land and water was scarce, the use of today's cemeteries
would have caused pollution and the waste of lands, which could be used for growing crops and
feeding people. The towers were built on top of the mountains. This process avoided the
pollution and use of land.


The process was the best system ancient Zoroastrians used in order to acknowledge the
sacredness of the elements of land, water, air and fire and not to pollute these elements.
Consumption of bodys flesh by birds was speedy.The birds could eat the human flesh in less
than half an hour. The remains were then dried by the sun.
By studying the early Zoroastrians funeral customs, we can see how sophisticated they were in
the way they laid their dead to rest. They used what they had to confirm the persons death. Used
urine to disinfect the body from diseases and used the silent towers and the available flesh eating
birds to bury their loved ones without contaminating or using up their sacred and valuable
resources. As we know in a dry place water land plays an important role in their survival.