Nine Nights and Three Substances

Zoroastrian purity is a physical matter with a moral basis. Pollution is understood as the work of the hostile spirit, present in the world as decay and above all in the corpse, so contact with death requires more than washing. The barashnum answers that requirement with a graded sequence. The candidate is led through a prepared ground marked out with stone seats and furrows and is washed three times: first with nirang, consecrated bull's urine, then with dry dust, then with water, each applied in a set order over the whole body while an attending priest recites the appropriate formulae.

The three substances are not interchangeable. Mary Boyce's account in her history of Zoroastrianism sets out the reasoning, which is that a liquid alone would carry the pollution into the water it touched, an offence in its own right, so the corrupting matter must first be absorbed and then dried before water is used at all. After the washing come nine nights apart, spent in a designated place, in which the person keeps clear of any contact that would restart the process, with further ablutions at intervals. The rite ends in a state that qualifies the person for what follows. This entry sets out the structure of the rite and is not an instruction for performing it.