Most Parsis recoil at drinking nirang, the consecrated urine of a bull, during the ritual bath before a marriage or navjote. Some priests look the other way when a child or a bride pretends to have swallowed it; however, a few stern ones insist on certifying its mandatory consumption. Merely brushing ones lips with the vessel is deemed noncompliance; a few drops must be drunk. Added to the nirang is bhashma or sacred ash from a first grade holy fire, followed by the munching of a couple of pomegranate leaves. Not exactly as tasty as avocado. Though, like caviar, it could be an acquired taste. Nevertheless, levity apart, this is the purificatory ritual before any sacred Zoroastrian ceremony.
Illustration by Farzana Cooper
Paranoid parents often over prepare their child who gets worked up at the sheer thought of consuming bovine excreta. Others treat it as a huge joke, bribing the child with a Coke or chocolate immediately after partaking of the brown liquid, if done without creating a fuss. Young brides, nervous as they are, swallow more than the required dosage and feel nauseous during the exchange of the vows. Nirang burps on the bridal night are not exactly the way to begin wedlock. In Navsari it was believed that excessive consumption of nirang led to inflammation of the spleen (Bau nirang pidho, étlé talli per sojo aavi gayo — I drank so much nirang that I got a swelling on my spleen). We have heard this firsthand from a doctor uncle whose diagnostic skills were nonexistent.
Mourners after attending a paidust are seen deftly circumventing the dispenser of taro (unconsecrated bull’s urine) who derives perverse pleasure from sprinkling it liberally on the fingers of men proceeding to the workplace directly from the Towers. Non Parsi colleagues wonder why the usually OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) bawaji smells so rotten. The truly devout, on the other hand, store nirang at home in cute little bottles in the belief that no evil can enter their precincts. In the olden days mobeds, while stranded in jungles at night, created a protective circuit around them by sprinkling taro in a circle, to prevent transgression by any poltergeist phenomena.
Rationalists have dismissed the use of taro as an unhygienic practice. As early as 1914 the arch reformist Dastur (Dr) Maneckji N. Dhalla, high priest of Karachi, in his book, Zoroastrian Theology, decried its significance. Gathas-only purists dismiss it. Good thoughts words and deeds; not bad smell, say the heretics. Consecrated nirang tested in a Munich laboratory many decades ago was found to be bacteria free. Of course, the smell causing bacteria is excluded, say the rationalists. The Khshnoomists love it. Is nirang the sacred elixir which purifies body and soul or is it all bull, is the perennial controversy.
The most sacred Zoroastrian ritual of nirangdin, the rite of consecrating bull’s urine, is regarded as the foundation of all purity in the religious life of a devout Zoroastrian. From ancient Iran to the present day, this ceremony continues to be performed on a regular basis. Bovine urine came to be called as nirang because its application or use was generally accompanied by the recital of a nirang, that is, a prayer formula. Nirang is used in every Zoroastrian purification ritual or ceremony from birth to death.
According to Sir J. J. Modi, in his scholarly work The religious ceremonies and customs of the Parsees, nirang is the ultimate purification. It is to be applied, consumed or sprinkled, as the case may be, by mothers ending the mandatory 40-day period of seclusion after giving birth; before investiture of sudreh and kusti at the time of navjote; by the bride and bridegroom during the purificatory bath or nahn; a priest about to undergo seclusion in preparation for liturgical ceremonies; during the countless rituals of higher liturgy; for cleansing the slabs upon which the corpse is placed before the funeral ceremony; by those who have come in contact with the dead or dead matter — naso or druj, the ultimate affliction in Zoroastrian theology; the list is endless.
Urine, of course, has been used by other civilizations and religions as a purifying agent. French-German lawyer and sexologist Dr Eugen Wilhelm, an authority, has stated: "The practice of using cow’s urine as a preservative against the influence of evil spirits is very old indeed and likely to date from the most ancient times in India, Iran, Celtic Britons in France, Egypt, Greece, Rome and Scandinavia.” Pliny the Elder called it "the most prominent physician of antiquity.” Auto urine therapy is a part of ancient Indian medicine and was extolled by India’s former Prime Minister Morarji Desai who was its greatest exponent.
Spiritually advanced Zoroastrian priests like the famed Dastur Jamshed Kookadaru, and in more recent times Ervad Yazdi Aibara of the Karani Agiary, and several other priests in the towns of Gujarat, have routinely used nirang to counter the effects of black magic and possession, including in certain little known ancient Zoroastrian rituals of exorcism.
Dastur (Dr) Firoze Kotwal, the eminence grise of Zoroastrian ritualism, has very recently (2022) penned a scholarly Festschrift on "Consecration and Importance of the Sacred Bull warasyaji — A Religious Injunction (see "Significance of the sacred bull,” pg 94).” The bull is popularly known as warasyaji.
In high liturgies, three strands of hair from the tail of a consecrated white bull are entwined and tied with a reef knot on a silver or gold finger ring and placed on a nine holed saucer through which the hom juice is strained and filtered. The use of the tail hair in the Yasna ritual gives this animal a special position within the ritual matrix of the faith and is greatly revered by members of the Zoroastrian community, writes Kotwal.
To be fit for consecration, the bull must be healthy, uncastrated, having a white glossy coat, a pink tongue with no spots, white hair, be without blemish or a single black hair on any part of its noble body, as prescribed in the authoritative scriptural texts, according to Kotwal. Zoroastrianism abhors abstinence, and therefore, the consecrated bull is permitted to mingle with cows, states Kotwal. The rationalists say that this denotes an albino bull and nothing more. In the villages of Gujarat, farmers alert the local Zoroastrian priest the moment an albino calf is born. A single black hair is sufficient ground for instant disqualification.
Until 1795, Bombay was under the religious authority of Navsari and the bull had to be consecrated only in Navsari; then, with great reluctance, the Bombay Parsi Punchayet was granted permission to do so, because of an acute shortage of consecrated bull’s urine in Bombay. Such is the exalted status of this consecrated bull that upon its death the sudreh and kusti are tied on its horns before it is buried in the ground. Until 1977 even the geh sarna ceremony for the deceased warasyaji was performed. Apprehending that some enthusiastic orthodox persons may, after performing this ceremony, further desire to consign the body of the bull to the Towers of Silence, this practice was discontinued.
To the reformist, all this may sound like extracts from The Lord of the Rings or a Harry Potter novel; however, for the devout and the orthodox, nirang is the ultimate purification elixir for establishing asha or the right order in nature.
The next time you feel that evil is lurking in your surroundings, sprinkle the magical golden liquid, or even take a swig, if you do not particularly care for your spleen.
Berjis Desai, lawyer and author of Oh! Those Parsis, and recently Towers of Silence, is a chronicler of the community.