As always I read your editorials with interest and noted your liberal use of apt quotations in "Beware the fury...” (Parsiana, January 21, 2017) following the (unprecedented?) decision in Navsari to permit an aramgah on the grounds adjacent to its Doongerwadi. 
Might I add another quotation from Italian theologian and philosopher St Thomas Aquinas (pictured) that may help explain an increasingly entrenched view within our own minuscule community: "To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
Unfortunately, in our community, faith is seen as total rigid adherence to the past and any application of thought is misconstrued as lacking in faith.
JAVID CANTEENWALA
London
javid.cante@gmail.com
January 8, 2017 will go down in the history of the community in India as a red letter day as the Zoroastrians of Navsari took the bold, practical and sensible decision of permitting the option of burial in addition to the dakhma system. The Navsari Anjuman ignored the views of the high priests and passed the resolution with a thumping majority to go ahead with the aramgah system, with only seven out of 166 present opposing.
The humdins of Navsari have proved that the community does not comprise dimwits who would blindly follow the instigation of a handful of confused bigots who equate customs with tenets of the religion. Other anjumans should follow the step taken by Navsari, known as Dharam ni tékri (seat of the religion).”
The high priests have opined that the system of dakhmenashini has not collapsed. If that be the case, why speak of strengthening the system? Have the high priests seen the conditions inside the dakhmas where bodies lie in rotting, stinking heaps? They claim that dakhmas are consecrated and have the same status as dadgahs. Since priests can enter dadgahs, why do they not enter the dakhmas to check things out for themselves?
Is the use of contraptions like solar panels stipulated in our religious scriptures? Are they part of the dakhmenashini system? Do they not amount to solar cremation? Why are the high priests not objecting to the panels as well as to the use of ozone gas and bovine urine? Are these part of the dakhmenashini system as enjoined in the Vendidad?
If burial is not permitted, why are the semi-decomposed piles of bodies surreptitiously taken out of the dakhmas at regular intervals and buried in mass graves on the Doongerwadi grounds?
HOMI DALAL
homeedalal@gmail.com
On the subject of burial of the dead, some Zoroastrians are of the view that the "earth is greatly aggrieved by burial.” However, at Doongerwadi in Bombay dead bodies in various stages of decomposition are periodically taken out of the dakhmas and unceremoniously subjected to mass burial in large pits. This practice is very inhuman, to say the least.
Would it not be a better option to give a decent burial to the bodies of our dear departed relatives in an aramgah for Zoroastrians situated on Doongerwadi lands? However, those who wish to use the dakhmenashini system may continue to do so. PURVEZ M. PATEL