Cyrus Mistry’s Last Rites To Be Performed On Tuesday; Rites May Take Place According To Rituals Of Parsi Community
New Delhi, 5th September 2022: Cyrus Mistry’s last rites will be performed on Tuesday. The former Tata Sons Chairman died in a road accident on Sunday. He had gone to Udvada in Gujarat to meet a Parsi religious leader. While returning, his car collided with the divider.
The accident was so severe that the front part of the Mercedes blew up. Three other people from the Parsi community were present along with Mistry, out of which one died and two have been admitted to the hospital.
According to the funeral rituals of the Parsi community, both burial and burning of dead bodies are considered wrong. Cyrus Mistry’s body was handed over to his family after postmortem. According to new information, some of his relatives live abroad. In such a situation, his last rites may be performed on Tuesday.
Why don’t Parsis bury or burn the dead body?
Cyrus Mistry’s last rites can be performed according to Zoroastrianism. In Hinduism, people entrust the dead body to fire or water. Christians and Muslims hand over the dead bodies to the earth. But the Parsis consider fire, water, and the earth sacred. They believe that burning the dead body makes the fire element impure. At the same time, by submitting it into the river, the water element is polluted, and burying it pollutes the earth element. For this reason, they hand over the dead body to the sky after death.
How are dead bodies handed over to the sky?
The population of the Parsi community in the world is close to 1 lakh. More than half of the community lives in Mumbai. A Tower of Silence has been built in Mumbai, also called Dakhma. To hand over the dead body to the sky, it is placed on top of a circular place. The dead body is left in the sunlight, after which vultures, eagles and crows eat the corpse. The people of the Parsi community consider the dead body impure. However, it is not clear whether Cyrus Mistry’s last rites will be performed in this manner.
