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A Tower of Silence is a circular, raised structure used by Zoroastrians for exposure of the dead, particularly to scavenging birds for the purposes of excarnation. Zoroastrian exposure of the dead is first attested in the mid-5th-century BCE ''Histories'' of Herodotus, but the use of towers is first documented in early 9th century.〔 The doctrinal rationale for exposure is to avoid contact with earth or fire, both of which are considered sacred. One of the earliest literary descriptions of such a building appears in the late 9th-century ''Epistles of Manushchihr'', where the technical term is ''astodan'', "ossuary".〔 Another technical term that appears in the 9th/10th-century texts of Zoroastrian tradition (the so-called Pahlavi books) is ''dakhmag'', for any place for the dead.〔 This Zoroastrian Middle Persian term is a borrowing from Avestan ''dakhma'', of uncertain meaning but related to interment and commonly translated as "grave". In the Avesta, the term is pejorative and does not signify a construction of any kind. In the Iranian provinces of Yazd and Kerman, ''dakhma'' continues as ''deme'' or ''dema''.〔 Yet another term that appears in the 9th/10th-century texts is ''dagdah'' "prescribed place".〔 The word also appears in later Zoroastrian texts of both India and Iran, but in 20th-century India came to signify the lowest grade of temple fire.〔 In India, the term ''doongerwadi'' came into use after a tower of silence was constructed on a hill of that name. The English language term "Tower of Silence" is a neologism attributed to Robert Murphy, an early 19th-century translator of the British colonial government in India.〔 ==Rationale== Zoroastrian tradition considers a dead body (in addition to cut hair and nail parings) to be ''nasu'', unclean, i.e. potential pollutants. Specifically, the corpse demon (Avestan: ''nasu.daeva'') was believed to rush into the body and contaminate everything it came into contact with, hence the ''Vendidad'' (an ecclesiastical code "given against the demons") has rules for disposing of the dead as "safely" as possible. To preclude the pollution of earth or fire (see Zam and Atar respectively), the bodies of the dead are placed atop a tower and so exposed to the sun and to scavenging birds. Thus, "putrefaction with all its concomitant evils... is most effectually prevented." 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tower of Silence」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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