Death is usually a private affair, tucked away behind cemetery gates or the sterile doors of a crematorium. But if you walk through certain parts of Mumbai or Yazd, you might stumble upon something that feels entirely different. It’s the Tower of Silence Dakhma. These circular, raised structures aren't just ruins or architectural oddities. They represent one of the most ecologically sophisticated—and currently embattled—funeral rites in human history.
Zoroastrianism is one of the world's oldest monotheistic religions. Its followers, the Parsis in India and the Iranis in Iran, have a specific view of the world. They believe that fire, earth, and water are sacred elements. Because of this, burying a body in the ground or burning it on a pyre is considered a form of pollution. It’s a huge "no-no" in their theology. So, what do you do with a corpse if you can't bury or burn it?
You give it back to nature.
How a Tower of Silence Dakhma Actually Works
The word Dakhma literally translates to "grave" in some contexts, but it's nothing like a western grave. It's a massive stone cylinder, open to the sky. Inside, the floor is divided into three concentric rings. Men go in the outer ring. Women go in the middle. Children are placed in the smallest, innermost circle.
The process is called sky burial, or dokhmenashini.
It sounds intense. Honestly, it is. The body is stripped of clothing and laid out for vultures. Within hours, these birds of prey consume the flesh. This isn't out of cruelty or lack of respect. In the Parsi worldview, the body is just a shell once the soul departs. By feeding the vultures, the deceased performs one final act of charity: sustaining another living creature.
Once the bones are bleached white by the sun and dried by the wind, they are pushed into a central ossuary pit. Layers of charcoal and sand filter any remaining organic matter before it reaches the earth. It’s incredibly efficient. Or at least, it was.
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The Vulture Crisis That Changed Everything
Here is where the story gets complicated. For centuries, the Tower of Silence Dakhma worked perfectly. But in the 1990s, something went catastrophically wrong. Across India, the vulture population plummeted by 99%.
It wasn't a mystery for long. Scientists like Dr. Vibhu Prakash from the Bombay Natural History Society eventually tracked the culprit down to a drug called Diclofenac. It’s an anti-inflammatory given to cattle. When a cow dies and a vulture eats it, the drug causes instant kidney failure in the bird.
Because the vultures vanished, the Dakhmas stopped "working." Bodies weren't being consumed in hours; they were decomposing over months. This created a massive crisis for the Parsi community in Mumbai. People living in luxury high-rises near the Doongerwadi (the forest area housing the towers) began to complain about the smell. More importantly, the religious ritual was broken. Without vultures, the body isn't being "returned" to nature quickly.
The Controversy Inside the Parsi Community
The Parsi community is tiny. There are maybe 60,000 left in India, and their numbers are shrinking. This makes the debate over the Tower of Silence Dakhma deeply personal and incredibly heated.
On one side, you have the traditionalists. They believe that dokhmenashini is the only way to ensure the soul's journey. They’ve tried to fix the problem by installing massive solar concentrators. These are basically giant mirrors that focus sunlight onto the bodies to speed up dehydration. It’s a high-tech workaround for a low-tech biological problem.
But it’s not perfect. It doesn't work during the monsoon season when the sky is gray for months.
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On the other side, you have the reformists. They are pushing for prayer halls where Parsis can choose cremation. In 2015, a group of liberal Parsis actually opened a prayer hall in Mumbai specifically for those who didn't want the Dakhma. The orthodox priests were furious. They argued that those who choose cremation shouldn't get the traditional four days of funeral prayers.
It’s a classic "old world vs. new world" clash. If you’re a Parsi today, where you choose to go when you die says a lot about how you view your faith.
Comparing the Dakhma to Modern Green Burials
It’s kind of ironic. While the Zoroastrian tradition is struggling, the rest of the world is starting to realize they were onto something.
- Standard Burial: Uses lacquered wood, metal handles, and embalming fluids (formaldehyde) that leak into the groundwater.
- Standard Cremation: Burns a massive amount of fossil fuel and releases mercury and carbon into the atmosphere.
- The Dakhma: Zero carbon footprint. No chemicals. Total recycling of nutrients back into the local ecosystem.
If you strip away the religious context, the Tower of Silence Dakhma is essentially the ultimate green burial. It’s a circular economy for the human body.
Why the Iranian Dakhmas Are Different
If you visit Yazd in Iran, you’ll see the Towers of Silence sitting on top of desert hills. They look like something out of a sci-fi movie. But here’s the catch: they’re empty.
In the 1970s, the Iranian government banned the use of Dakhmas for public health reasons. The Zoroastrians there were forced to adapt. They now bury their dead in graves lined with concrete to prevent "polluting" the earth. It’s a compromise.
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The Iranian towers are now tourist sites. You can hike up the steep paths and stand inside the stone circles. It's haunting. You can feel the weight of thousands of years of tradition that just... stopped. This serves as a warning for the Indian Parsis. Once the ritual dies, it doesn't usually come back.
The Survival of the Doongerwadi
The most famous Tower of Silence Dakhma complex is the Doongerwadi in Mumbai. It sits on Malabar Hill, some of the most expensive real estate in the world. 55 acres of dense forest in the middle of a concrete jungle.
Developers have been eyeing that land for decades. If the Dakhmas ever close, that forest—the "lungs of South Mumbai"—would almost certainly be razed for skyscrapers. So, even for non-Zoroastrians, the survival of this funeral rite is a matter of environmental importance. The vultures might be gone, but the forest remains because of the faith.
Practical Realities for the Future
If you're interested in the logistics or the ethics of the Tower of Silence Dakhma, there are a few things to keep in mind.
First, access is strictly limited. If you aren't a Parsi, you aren't getting inside a working Dakhma. This isn't about being "secretive" for the sake of it; it’s about the sanctity of the space. There have been scandals in the past—like in 2006, when a Parsi woman named Dhun Baria smuggled in photos of the decomposing bodies to prove the solar panels weren't working. It caused a massive rift in the community.
Second, the vulture restoration projects are actually starting to show some success. The Vulture Conservation Breeding Centres (VCBC) in India have successfully bred and released birds back into the wild. If the vulture population recovers, the Dakhmas might see a "return to form."
Steps for Understanding the Tradition
If you want to explore this topic further or support the preservation of this heritage, here is what actually matters:
- Support Vulture Conservation: Organizations like the RSPB and Bombay Natural History Society are doing the heavy lifting to bring back the birds that make the Dakhma function. Without the birds, the system is broken.
- Respect the Boundaries: If you visit a place like Doongerwadi, stay in the public garden areas. These are active places of mourning, not tourist attractions.
- Read the Scholars: Look up the work of Khojeste Mistree for a traditionalist perspective, or Jehangir Patel (editor of Parsiana) for a more liberal view of the community's evolution.
- Acknowledge the Nuance: Avoid viewing sky burial through a "gross-out" lens. It’s an act of profound ecological empathy.
The Tower of Silence Dakhma is a reminder that how we treat our dead is a reflection of how we value the living world. Whether it survives the next century depends on a tiny bird and a tiny community's ability to balance ancient laws with a rapidly changing planet. It’s a delicate dance between the sacred and the scientific, and the stakes couldn't be higher for the Parsi people.