Billboards rise out of the Tower of Silence in Mumbai. (AP)

Mumbai, June 12 (AP): Some might see the towering billboards that rise out of a centuries-old Mumbai funeral ground as a message from beyond the grave.

But the signs, which exhort motorists to “rev up your night life” by buying a popular car, have created a split in the city’s Parsi community since they were erected last week, with many charging the signs desecrate the sanctity of the place.

Trustees of the funeral ground, who authorised the billboards, say they are needed to raise cash to maintain the Tower of Silence.

The tower is where Parsis, followers of the Bronze Age Persian prophet Zarathustra or Zoroaster, have wrapped their dead in white muslin and left them to be devoured by vultures since 1673.

Parsis, also known as Zoroastrians, worship fire and believe that cremation is a mortal sin and that burial pollutes the earth. So they leave their dead atop the towers to be devoured by vultures, a process they believe releases the spirit.

“I have told people who are objecting, bring me Rs 3 million (Rs 30 lakh) a year and I will stop the advertisements,” said Burjor Antia, a trustee with the Bombay Parsi Panchayat, or council governing the community’s affairs. “But nobody brings the money.”

Antia said money from the advertising billboards is needed to maintain the lush 55-acre cemetery that begins at Mumbai’s posh Kemps Corner area and spreads across Malabar Hill, the city’s wealthiest neighbourhood.

“We are not profiting from this, it is proper utilisation of land,” he said, adding that the billboards should not offend people because they were near the ground’s entrance and not near the dhokma, or towers, on which the dead are placed.

But this has not mollified some members of the community, who say it is wrong to profit from the sacred ground where they believe the dead lie waiting for their souls to be freed.

“I am very, very upset. How can you commercialise a heritage ground that has existed for more than 300 years?” said Anahita Pundole. “I am enraged that this is being allowed. This is a sanctum sanctorum for the dead and it is being destroyed.”

Zoroastrianism is a monotheistic religion that predates Christianity and Islam and is believed to have influenced those faiths as well as Judaism.