Up to 95% of India's vultures have died, leaving excarnated
bodies untouched and a potential source of spread of disease. Now a cause has been discovered. A painkiller drug
called diclofenac is said to be responsible. No details as to how it acts to kill the important scavengers.
"excarnation" is the (to us revolting) practice of putting dead human and animal bodies on elevated platforms
where vultures eat the flesh, leaving only the bones to be
interred. It is a faut de mieux solution because economics
prevent use of methods employed in prosperous countries.

It is a faut de mieux solution because economics
prevent use of methods employed in prosperous countries.

I'm not so sure. In respect to the disposal of the dead, you have your buriers (with optional emblaming) and your cremators. Hindus tend to cremate, Muslims bury, but Zoroastrians (aka Parsees) don't cremate (since they venerate fire). I'm not sure why they don't bury, but they expose the bodies of the deceased on so-called towers of silence. There are at most 100K parsees world-wide. A Parsee friend whose father died, about two decades ago, told me that the vultures weren't excaranting his and other exposed bodies, and so acid was brought in to help.

Now on to revolting practises. Eating up prime real estate in towns and cities with cemetaries full of dolled up corpses in huge metal containers. See E. Waugh's The Loved One and J. Mitford's The American Way of Death.

Dear jheem: I saw a story on Internet a couple years ago
that a Norwegian scientist has shown that immersing a body
into liquid nitrogen turned both flesh and bones into a
fine suspension that would be rapidly digested by bacteria
in a land fill. I wonder if it would be more expensive than
cremation. And if any disease agents could survive. It would be like the Allahabad method of disposing of feces,
by mixing it into the soil, facilitating detoxification.

Diclofenac is sold as Voltaren in US and as Voveran in Canada. It's available in lower doses in US without a prescription. It is a "non-steroidal-anti-inflammatory-drug" (NSAID), in the same class as ibuprofen (Motrin, and others), indomethicin (Indocin) and even butazolidine

The most common side effects of this class of drugs are stomach irritation and occasionally bleeding; rarer but more serious side effects are liver failure (especially in large doses acutely) and kidney failure (in large cumulative doses over long times).

And keep in mind that words like "large" doses and "long" periods of time are relative, and may vary greatly from person to person, reinforcing the position that the "right" dose of most medicines is "as little as you can get away with..." (Not all of them; there's another bunch whose dose is predicated on objective markers, and for these, instructions should be followed strictly!)

So, how is this drug getting into 95% of the vultures? Are lots of Parsees taking it in their last illnesses? Even so, surely not all the vultures eat dead Parsees. Or is it that there never were all that many vultures and dead Parsee was a major item in the diet of all of them?

Bingley

Hi all

This link provides some interesting stuff about the vultures, diclofenac and excarnation.

http://www.rense.com/general38/vulture.htm

For what it's worth, the Parsees could never have been the main source of food for the vultures except, perhaps, for small populations in cities like Bombay (which contains about half of the wold's Parsees, jheem's estimate of their total numbers being about right, as far as I know).

Have just returned from a few weeks in Bombay and recall that I didn't see any vultures there (Gyps bengalensis, as I recall). The Black Kite (or Pariah Kite, Milvus migrans) seemed as ubiquitous as ever. They too are scavengers, though, as the link indicates, they aren't capable of breaking through tough animal hide.

Renal failure in vultures, eh? Who would have thought it. I shall miss the sight of them crowding roadside trees near the start of a town, presumable waiting for road-kill.

White-backed vulture, RIP.

cheer

the sunshine warrior

I haven't looked at your link Ravi, but the whole idea of vultures dying from Diclofenac sounds really far fetched to me. Snopes will put the matter to rest, am sure.

The Parsees so called because they came to India from Persia were Zoroastrians that fled Iran from conflict with the new Islamic fervour sweeping the region and the oppressive Jaziya tax that the new rulers imposed on non converts. In India, they have thrived for centuries and are amongst the richest and most literate communities there.
I am uncertain if ALL Zoroastrians follow the excaration that is described here, but the Parsees in India certainly do. The excarnation sites are called 'Towers of Silence' and are themselves rather expensive to build.
For Zoraoastrians the elements, fire, earth, water, wind are very sacred and this method is chosen to prevent defiling the environment. I can imagine that this will open up a Pandora of questions, but this is all I know.

I recently read a book, In search of Zarathustra. There is a lot in the book on the 'heretic' cults of Mithraism and Minocheanism (I just KNOW that I got that spelling all wrong), thier roots in Zarathushtra and the strong influence of Zoroastrianism on the religious beliefs of Europe in the middle ages. Splendid read

Ta for that background Maahey. I'd add to that by saying that the Parsee community separates itself, generally, from other Zoroastrians, whom they tend to refer to as Iranis.

Relatives of ours lived in a high rise building on Malabar Hill (in South Bombay), on which, also, the Parsees have probably the most important Towers of Silence in the city. These structures aren't towers, by the way, but large, shallow basins with tall walls (for privacy). The bodies are laid in them ceremonially (the Agyaris, or priests of the Parsees tend to come from specific families, with the tradition passed down from father to son).

The Parsees are very protective of the Towers, and you will rarely, if ever, see a photograph of a Tower of Silence, particularly one in use.

One of the problems, even when I lived in Bombay, was the declining vulture population. The number of dead Parsees 'stacked up' a bit, and the vultures that remained had their choice of tidbits. As a consequence, my aunt and her family have, on occasion, found the odd bone discarded on the balcony by a satiated vulture that couldn't be bothered to try to crack it! As you may imagine, this caused something of a scandal, and there was talk of putting pressure on the Parsees to close their Towers - at least those in Malabar Hill, because of their proximity to humans. I can't remember what the upshot was.

Ah well...

The language of the Zoroastrian sacred texts is called Avesta and is an important language in the Indo-Iranian group of the IE family. It's related to cuneiform Old Persian, modern Farsi and Pashtu, and to Sanskrit.

Here's a website that has some example texts:

http://www.avesta.org/avesta.html

As far as I am aware the Zend Avesta, the complete holy book of the Parsees, was lost in antiquity, and only 'fragments' of the original text survive. Enough, though, I presume, for them to conduct their religion by.

The fragments that survived, or were rewritten from memory, are rathered garbled, too, even for religious texts. They are dated to about 1600 BCE. OTOH, the Rgveda is dated roughly to 2000 to 1500 BCE, although it was orally preserved for a long time before being written down. (I should caution that these are the dates arrived at by western linguists; Indian nationalists (Hindutva) have arrived at different numbers.)

Indian nationalists (Hindutva) have arrived at different numbers

This was my impression too. As I noted in a thread some forums up, the current (politically?) popular theory in Indian history is that the Indus Valley Civilisation gave rise to the Indo-European language group, and there was no invasion of the Aryas, but an evolution of their society.

I find it hard to swallow, but would like to see the evidence.

cheer

the sunshine warrior

Some more useless information that you might want to add to your collection of such! The head of a cultural/relgious institution in the South of India, near Madrasm has published a detailed treatise on the close similarities between the Zend Avesta and the Saama Veda (the second one after the Rig) and also on the common heritage of the Persians and the Indo Aryans.
Ravi, I thought the towers were really towers!! Malabar Hill has one!!!!??? Hard to believe the property sharks left that one alone!
Malabar Hill - a prime residential location in the South of Bombay with absolutely gorgeous views of the sea.

Ahhh but the Parsees look after their own, and the community is more than rich enough to resist the blandishments of the developers. Having said which, about 15-20 years ago the Parsees themselves used some of their large swathe of land on Malabar Hill to set up a small housing estate for 'distressed' Parsees. If you go beyond the Hanging Gardes, towards Kemps Corner, you'll see it on the right.

cheer

the sunshine warrior

As I noted in a thread some forums up, the current (politically?) popular theory in Indian history is that the Indus Valley Civilisation gave rise to the Indo-European language group, and there was no invasion of the Aryas, but an evolution of their society.

Ravi, I just saw this; missed it in the flurry.
I hadn't read this before. Where did you come across it; would like to read too. When you say Indus valley, I take it you mean the Harappans? The use of the term 'Invasion' has been debated I know and I confess to being an Anti-Invasionalist!

Check this out for starters:

http://www.hindubooks.org/david_frawley/myth_aryan_invasion/indian_civilization_an_indigenous_development/page5.htm

Shouldn't that be Chennai and Mumbai? Or have the old pre-PC names reasserted theirselves?

the current (politically?) popular theory in Indian history is that the Indus Valley Civilisation gave rise to the Indo-European language group

Only if you're Aryan linguistically, i.e., speaking an Indic IE language. The Dravidians (mainly Tamils in the stuff I've seen) have of course figured out that Harappa-Mohenjodaro civilisation spoke a Dravidian language. Also, the whole Aryan Invasion Theory is a bit of a strawman in that few linguists/archeologists these days hold to the classical hoardes of IE sweeping in from the Urheimat and conquering the autochthonous aborigines that Max Mueller et al imagined. I have some links on one of my blog entries:

http://www.bisso.com/ujg_archives/000223.html

Lovely links both of you! Thanks! jheem, a couple of links, (sarasvathi) are broken on that page.

The Brahuis in Iran and adjoining Western Pakistan speak a language, that is extremely close to the Dravidian ones in India....make of that in light of current discussion, what you will!

There are many Dravidian languages and *dialects in India, jheem....essentially all the four languages in the deep South - Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam are Dravidian. Dravidian dialects are documented in Central India too. The four listed above have a definite Sanskrit influence and that has a lot to do with Brahminism.

It is however, only amongst the Tamils, that a serious anti-Brahmin movement arose in the mid sixties. The Brahmins are considered Aryan and the Tamil Brahminical hegemony over all intellectual/socio-cultural, not to mention, religious matters was what brought things to a pass. Tamilian Brahmins suddenly had a lot of issues such as race, culture and origins to contend with. Thankfully things died down, but there is and has always been a DEFINITE, palpable difference between the Brahminical way of life in the South, especially Tamil Nadu, and the rest of the population.

PS: Ravi, your link's made my page go wide

The Brahuis in Iran and adjoining Western Pakistan speak a language, that is extremely close to the Dravidian ones in India....make of that in light of current discussion, what you will!

Yes, but nobody's quite sure when they got there. I've seen suggestions that they imigrated to their current location from the south of Indian as recently as the 1500s CE, as mercenary soldiers. Not saying I guy it, but make of that what you will

There are many Dravidian languages and *dialects in India, jheem....essentially all the four languages in the deep South - Tamil, Kannada, Telugu and Malayalam are Dravidian. Dravidian dialects are documented in Central India too. The four listed above have a definite Sanskrit influence and that has a lot to do with Brahminism.

Yes, I know that, but the Tamilophones are the ones I'm most familiar with (as Tamil is the only Dravidian language I've read linguistics books about). I've read varying reports on the magnitude of Sanskrit loanwords in Tamil: from zero to more than 10%. It's a touchy subject, and I guess I should make a full disclosure here: almost all of the South Indians I've come to know are Tamilians. Also, we shouldn't forget that there are other language families represented in India besides Dravidian and IE.

As for influence, it runs both ways. There's definitely a non-IE substrate in Sanskrit, but whether this proves that there were Dravidians in the Sarasvati river area when Sasnkrit-speaking folks arrived or whether they were met up with in central or southern Indian is another matter. If we drop the pesky Aryan Invasion Theory, we're left with where the Sanskrit / Prakrit speakers were and were the Proto-Dravidian speakers were. It's a similar problem, years later, to the Persian Moghuls invading. And they did make it into the South.

It is however, only amongst the Tamils, that a serious anti-Brahmin movement arose in the mid sixties. The Brahmins are considered Aryan and the Tamil Brahminical hegemony over all intellectual/socio-cultural, not to mention, religious matters was what brought things to a pass. Tamilian Brahmins suddenly had a lot of issues such as race, culture and origins to contend with. Thankfully things died down, but there is and has always been a DEFINITE, palpable difference between the Brahminical way of life in the South, especially Tamil Nadu, and the rest of the population.

Yup, so I noticed that recently when I spent time in Tamilnadu. Of course it helped that I was staying with a rather conservative (religiously) Aiyer Brahman family.

And, please, I'd like to remind everybody that I'm trying to discuss this topic as neutrally as possible. So, I hope nobody gets offended. And, now back to our previously scheduled linguistic issues. --sivaramakrishnan (my real Hindu name) aka jheem

Sivaramakrishnan? Good grief. Please don't tell me that of all the boards, in all the world, we three are Dravidians wound up here?

My parents' tongue is Malayalam. And I've seen a website that theorises that 'us Nairs' are not indigenous to Kerala, but some form of immigrant bunch from - you guessed it - North-West India, arrived a few hundred years ago and took possession of all the plush jobs/estates and have lorded it over the deserving locals ever since. Whilst adopting their language, of course.

As pure folk-lore, I was always told that Malayalam was the most sanskritised of the South Indian languages. The family seemed to take pride in that! What I think is reasonably well-established is that Malayalam is the youngest of the big four, being only about 1500 years old.

And yes, I reject entirely Mumbai - given that I lived in the city for 22 years, I believe I have the right to call it what I want. And I can just never remember Chennai for Madras.

cheer

the sunshine warrior

Sivaramakrishnan? Good grief. Please don't tell me that of all the boards, in all the world, we three are Dravidians wound up here?

No, I'm sorry to mislead you and Maahey, but as far as ethnicity goes, I'm a Liguro-Lombard mix. And as for nationality, I'm a Yank. It's just that after spending a fortnight in Madras and Trichy with a friend's family and for his wedding, his mom gave me the name Sivaramakrishnan. And who was I to turn down her kind gift? Also, their family astrologer informed me I was a Tamil in a previous life. As for the age of languages, all four Dravidian contestants are the same age. Tamil just has an older literature than the other three. Also, the percentages for Sanskrit loanwords I've seen are different if you're counting in colloquial versus literary Tamil.

Must do some more looking up on the origins of Malayalam et al.

cheer

the sunshine warrior

It helps if you read Russian. I kept running across a couple of Soviet linguists who did a bunch of work on comparative Dravidian. At least some of their work is available in English and/or German. I'll try to put together a bibliography. Maybe we can form a Dravidian reading group ...