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Tuesday, Dec. 09, 2008 (TIME Magazine)

The Last of the

Zoroastrians

By Deena Guzder

http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2008/0812/postcard_yazd_1205.jpg

Zoroastrians pray around a fireplace inside

their temple in the village

of Chak Chak.

Far removed

from Tehran's bustling tin-roofed teashops and Isfahan's verdant pomegranate gardens, the deserts known

as Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut meet at the city of Yazd,

once the heart of the Persian Empire.

Walking

across the wind-whipped plains of the forgotten city, a young Iranian woman

dressed in colorful floral garbs points out a sand-dusted tower hovering in the

distance like a dormant volcano under a relentless sun. " This is where we

put tens of thousands of corpses over the years, " she explains with a

congenial smile.

The funerary

tower is part of the ancient burial practice of Zoroastrianism, the world's

oldest monotheistic religion. Zoroastrians (known in India as Parsis) regard sky

burials, in which the bodies are exposed to natural elements including vultures

in open-topped " Towers of Silence, " as an ecologically friendly

alternative to cremation, consistent with their religion's reverence for the

earth. A Zoroastrian priest clad in a long, cotton robe explains: " Death

is considered to be the work of Angra Mainyu, the embodiment of all that is

evil, whereas the earth and all that is beautiful is considered to be the pure

work of God. We must not pollute the earth with our remains. "

The priest

believes that open burials are a fulfillment of the central tenet of his

religion, which is to practice good deeds. With a forlorn expression, he notes

that, 3,000 years after the tradition of open burials began, there are not

enough Zoroastrians left alive to keep the tower in Yazd open. Instead, today's Zoroastrians who

want to observe traditional burial practices must request in their will that

their body is sent to a forested suburb in Mumbai,

India, where the last Tower of Silence still operates.

In the

alabaster prayer room of the Zoroastrian temple in the center of Yazd, a handful of

adherents sway to the cadence of ancient Persian prayers recited as a priest

feeds sticks of sandalwood and sprinkles of frankincense into a blazing urn.

Zoroastrians wear hand-woven wool cords as external symbols of their faith, and

almost always pray in front of a fire, which represents purity and

sustainability. In Yazd,

the holy flame has burned for 1,500 years without ever being extinguished.

While Zoroastrianism was once the dominant religion in a swathe of territory

spanning from Rome and Greece to India

and Russia,

the number of adherents has dwindled exponentially over the centuries. Although

Yazd is the

birthplace of the religion, only 200 of its 433,836 people still practice

Zoroastrianism because migration, forced conversions, and centuries of

oppression have diminished the population.

Worldwide,

there are 190,000 Zoroastrians at most, and perhaps as few as 124,000 by some

estimates. Although Zoroastrians are few in number, their faith has influenced

Judaism, Christianity and Islam with its teachings of a single deity, a

dualistic universe of good versus evil, and a final day of reckoning. The

religion professes that humankind is designed to evolve toward perfection, but

is complicated by evil forces such as greed, lust and hatred, explains Mehraban

Firouzgary, the head priest of the Zoroastrian temple in Tehran. According to Zoroastrians, these evil

forces must be challenged proactively by developing a " good mind "

that embraces a life of good thoughts, good words and good deeds.

Despite their

shrinking population, Zoroastrians remain fiercely divided over whether to

recognize interfaith families, let alone accept non-generational Zoroastrians.

Tens of thousands fled Persia

during the Islamic incursions in the 10th Century and were granted refuge in India under the

condition they did not marry outside their faith or proselytize to the Hindu

majority. Ramiyar P. Karanjia, principal of a Zoroastrian religious school in Mumbai, India,

insists, " Conversion is not part of our religion. " Yet, in India, home to

the majority of Zoroastrians, the community is declining by about 10% every

decennial census, according to a report released by UNESCO. Today, Zoroastrians

remain a tight-knit and self-secluded community that strongly encourages

marriage within the faith.

According to

Parva Namiranian, a Zoroastrian medical student at Tehran

University, the community in Iran preserves

its identity by learning the Persian poetry of the Shah Nameh and holding

religious classes and celebrations. She says Zoroastrians are accepted in Iran because

they " represent a proud history " and all Iranians, regardless of

religion, enjoy celebrating the Zoroastrian New Year, Nowruz, because it's an

excuse to buy clothes and eat sweets. Mehraban Firouzgary, the head priest in

the Zoroastrian temple in Tehran,

agrees that most Iranians regard the Zoroastrian minority favorably, but he

worries about the community's survival. " Zoroastrians have lived in Iran for over

3,000 years, " he says, " but there are so few left today. "

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1864931,00.html