History of the Parsis : including their manners, customs, religion and present position : with coloured and other illustrations : in two volumes

CHAP. V.] PURIFVING FIRE. 213

undergone several ceremonies, and it is these ceremonies, full of meaning, that render the fire more sacred in the eye of a Parsi. We will briefly recount the process here. In establishing a firetemple fires from various places of manufacture are brought and kept in different vases. Great efforts are also made to obtain fire caused by lightning.? Over one of these fires a perforated metallic flat tray with a handle attached is held. On this tray are placed small chips and dust of fragrant sandal-wood. These chips and dust are ignited by the heat of the fire below, care being taken that the perforated tray does not touch the fire. Thus a new fire is created out of the first fire. Then from this new fire another one is created by the same process. From this new fire another is again produced, and so on, until the process is repeated nine times. The fire thus prepared after the ninth process is considered pure. * Fire produced by lightning was obtained for Hormasji Wadia’s tash-Behram at Bombay from Calcutta through the exertions of a highly-respected Parsi citizen, Naorozji Sorabji Bengali, who was then living in the latter city. This gentleman haying received information that a tree some miles distant from Calcutta had caught fire through lightning, he and his friends immediately proceeded to the place and secured a block of the burning tree, and kept its fire alive for several days by feeding it with sandal-wood. It was afterwards conveyed to Bombay by land in charge of Parsis. This presented in those days no slight difficulties. Naorozji Bengali, grandfather of the present Mr. Sorabji Shapurji Bengali, C.1.E., of Bombay, had established himself as a merchant at Caleutta, and was well known

for his charitable and generous disposition. He built a tower of silence at Calcutta for the use of his co-religionists.