Corpse Demon
Radiolab
WNYC Studios
4.6 • 43.5K Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Heaven and hell, Judgement Day, monotheism — these ideas all came from one ancient Persian religion: Zoroastrianism. Also: Sky Burials. Zoroastrians put their dead on top of a structure called The Tower of Silence where vultures devour the body in a matter of hours. It’s clean, efficient, eco-friendly. It’s how it’s been for thousands of years.
Until 2006. That’s when a Zoroastrian woman living in Mumbai snuck up into the tower and found bloated, rotting bodies everywhere. The vultures were gone. And not just at the tower — all across the country.
In this episode, we follow the Kenyan bird biologist, Munir Virani, as he gets to the bottom of this. A mystery whose stakes are not just the end of an ancient burial practice, but the health of all the world’s ecosystems.
The answer, in unexpected ways, points back to us.
Special thanks to Daniel Solomon, Peter Wilson, Samik Bindu, Vibhu Prakash, Heather Natola and the Rapture Trust in New Jersey, and Avir’s uncle Hoshang Mulla, who told him about this story over Thanksgiving dinner.
EPISODE CREDITSReported by - Avir Mitrawith help from - Sindhu GnanasambandanProduced by - Sindhu Gnanasambandanwith help from - Pat WaltersOriginal music and sound design contributed by - Jeremy Bloomwith mixing help from - Arianne WackFact-checking by - Diane Kellyand Edited by - Pat Walters
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Wait, you're listening. |
| 0:01.0 | Okay. |
| 0:02.0 | All right. |
| 0:03.0 | Okay. |
| 0:04.0 | All right. |
| 0:05.0 | You're listening to Radio Lab. |
| 0:09.0 | Radio Lab. |
| 0:10.0 | From WNYC. |
| 0:11.0 | WNYC. |
| 0:12.0 | All right, we're going to begin today's episode at a golf course wedding venue, sort of, |
| 0:25.4 | with our contributing editor and resident ER doctor of your metra. |
| 0:30.4 | Parsie time. |
| 0:31.4 | Now, one thing you need to know at the jump of this story is that a veer was raised in |
| 0:36.5 | part in this religion that is mostly practiced in South Asia called Zoroastrianism. |
| 0:43.6 | In particular, Indian Zoroastrians are called Parsies. |
| 0:48.4 | It's not a big religion, less than 200,000 followers, but a fair number of them happen to |
| 0:54.5 | be here in South Jersey. |
| 1:00.9 | They rent out this space once a month to socialize, read scripturally, tons of home-made Indian |
| 1:05.7 | food, but this time of year, we did not send him there for that. |
| 1:08.9 | I don't know if you're ever going to grab some snack. |
| 1:10.3 | Although it sounds like you did do some of that. |
| 1:12.5 | Okay. |
... |
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