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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
difference in civil or social rights, as is the case among the Hindus. Females are all Ostâ. They cannot be Herbad so long as they are not eligible to the holy order.
In another place the learned writer confounds the corpse-bearers with Nasasalars. The former are called Khandhias (MM), from khandh, meaning a shoulder,' and their office is to carry the bier on their shoulders from the door of the deceased's house to that of the Tower of Silence. They are held inferior to Nasasâlârs, who cannot strictly be called corpsebearers.
When a Pârsi dies the Nasasâlârs bring an empty bier from the Nasankhaná (1444)-a house where they and Khândhiâs are required to be present to attend any instantaneous call for service-to the house of the deceased. An hour before starting for the Tower, they enter the room where the body is deposited on a smooth slab of stone. The Nasasâlârs take up the body from the slab and place it on the bier, which then rests on the slab. Then, after the Mobeds have chanted some prayers, the Nasasâlârs remove the bier to the entrance door of the house, where the Khåndhiâs wait to receive it. This delivered, the Nasasâlârs, who are always two, except when the corpse is very heavy, walk with the bier, one on each side to the door of the Tower. Here the Nasasâlârs again receive the bier and carry it into the inner part of the Tower. The Khândhiâs are on no occasion permitted to enter the Tower. None but Nasasâlârs can do so. The Khåndhiâs are "well cared for and well paid;" but to say that they "are not associated with by the rest of the community" is far from true. They associate freely with the rest of the Pârsis, can reside in the same house with them, can eat at the same table-in fact there is nothing to prevent them from so associating with the other members of the community.
Prof. Williams considers feeding the dog with bread a part of the ceremony called Sag-did. In this also he is mistaken. The ceremony of Sag-did is nothing more than showing the corpse to any dog, and not necessarily a white one or a four-eyed' one. The very etymology of the word fully explains the ceremony. It is derived from Persian sag, meaning a dog,' and did, from didan, 'to see.'
Again, "the fire sanctuary of the sagri," as the writer says, "has a window or aperture so arranged that when the sacred fire is fed with sandalwood fuel by the veiled priest, just before the corpse-bearers enter the Tower, a ray from the flame may be projected over the dead body at the moment of its exposure." This is not correct. With no such design is the sagri built. The pro
[JULY, 1878.
fessor himself admits that "a ray from the sacred fire had barely opportunity to fall on the corpse at all."
The bread with which the so-called funeral dog is fed is supposed by Prof. Williams to be a substitute for the flesh of the dead body. Here, too, he is mistaken. Nowhere even in the whole of the Zand Avasta is bread ever supposed to be a substitute for the flesh. To feed a dog at the Tower of Silence is a practice sanctioned by convention, rather than by religion. Of all animals the dog is most dear to the Pârsis, on account of its undeviating faithfulness, and consequently they keep up the practice of feeding a dog as almost a sacred obligation.
In another place the learned professor has said that the soul of the deceased man is supposed to hover about in a restless state for the three days immediately succeeding death, in the neighbourhood of the dakhmas. This is not quite. correct. Only the soul of a sinful man is supposed to do so.
Again, it is not necessary that the initiatory ceremonies on admitting a young boy into the Parsi religion should take place in a fire-temple. For this purpose, a private dwelling is as good as a fire-temple. Nor is it necessary that the ceremony should be performed by a Dastur presiding over several Mobeds. In many cases, when the parents are not well off, only one or two Mobeds perform the ceremony.
About the bull whose urine is drunk at the initiatory ceremony I have to add that the bull is called Varasto (921), and must be of a white colour: if a single hair on its body be found other than white, the animal is rejected as unfit for the purpose. I will conclude with the remark that I cannot discover what Prof. Williams means by "the second shirt."
SORABJI KAVASJI KHAMBATA.
SAKA AND SAMVAT DATES. SIR,-Some authorities give 79 A. D., and some give 78 A.D., as the date of commencement of the Saka era; and similarly the Samvat era of Vikramaditya is by some dated from 57 B.C., and by some from 56 B.C. Which is the correct date in each case, and why ?
2. What is the correct method for converting Samvat and Saka dates into years A. D. ? Ordinarily the conversion is made by simply adding 57 (56), or subtracting 79 (78), to or from the date A.D., as the case may be; but, since the Samvat, Saka, and Christian years do not begin on the same day, I do not understand how the ordinary simple method can be correct.
