arsees,
with their "Towers of Silence." According to their belief, earth is
too sacred to be contaminated, and fire too divine to be polluted, by
the bodies of their dead, which, therefore, they expose in the towers,
erected upon an adjacent hill, to be consumed by a crowd of hungry,
expectant vultures. One usually sees forty or fifty of these filthy
birds standing around the edge of each tower, watching the funeral
cortege as it slowly winds its way up the hill, eager to pounce upon
the body as soon as exposed by the bearers in the centre within. And
from the time of exposure it takes hardly ten minutes before every
particle of flesh has been consumed.

The one hundred thousand Parsees of Bombay are almost the only
representatives of the ancient faith of Zoroaster, perhaps the purest
of all ethnic religions. They were driven out of their home land of
Persia in the early onrush of Mohammedan fury, and fled, twelve
centuries ago, to India, where they found asylum.

The Parsees have the distinction of being the most advanced people of
India, alike in wealth and philanthropy, in their treatment of woman,
and in education and general culture. Their influence throughout the
land is far beyond their numbers. And yet they are so narrow in their
conception of their faith, that they declined, the other day, to
receive into their fold the English bride of one of their number. Thus
they decided that there is no door of entrance into their religion for
any one who is not a born Parsee.

It is in this city, also, that we find a large representation of
another ancient cult--Jainism.

Jainism is closely kin to Buddhism. It represents the same type of
reaction from a debased Brahmanism. As its name indicates, it is a
cult for the worship of "The Victorious Ones," that is, men who by
self-discipline have triumphed over their passions and have attained
perfection. Buddhism succumbed to, and was absorbed by, a new militant
Brahmanism, which we call Hinduism. Jainism, on the other hand, has
maintained itself as a distinct faith and now has 1,334,148 followers.
Like Buddhism, it is an agnostic religion, knowing no object of
worship save the seventy-two Victorious Ones.

One of the leading characteristics of Jainism is its love of life,
even in its lowest manifestation. Their devotion to this article of
their faith is carried to such an extent that the devout will sweep
the road lest they step upon insects, and cover their mouth with g