Jashneh Sadeh: Chasing Away the Winter Blues

By Heidi Noroozy

Jashneh Sadeh celebration in Tehran
Credit: Farzad J

It’s Christmas Eve and for many people around the world, tomorrow marks the highlight of one of the year’s most festive seasons. With so much holiday cheer to go around, it may be hard to imagine a time when all you want is for spring flowers to replace winter’s snow and for Jack Frost to go nipping at someone else’s nose.

But the winter blues are just around the corner. You can count on it.

The ancient Persians had a remedy for the cabin fever that sets in around the middle of the cold season. They banished the blues with a festival called Jashneh Sadeh, or Celebration of the 100 Days, held on the tenth day of the Iranian month of Bahman, which coincides with January 30 on the Gregorian calendar.

The festival derives its name from the fact that it falls just 50 days and 50 nights before Eid-e Norooz, the Persian New Year festival that marks the first day of spring. I’ve written about that festival in this space before. You can find the post here.

According to Persian legend, the mythological King Hushang established Jashneh Sadeh after a hike in the mountains, where he encountered a poisonous snake and tried to kill it with a stone. But his aim was off and instead of hitting the serpent, the stone struck another rock. A spark flew up and ignited dry underbrush. King Hushang had discovered the art of lighting a fire.

The Zoroastrians took up the tradition and celebrated Jashneh Sadeh as a fire festival. They believed that a bonfire built in midwinter defeated the demons of frost and cold, who turned water to ice and destroyed the roots of life-giving plants. The fire was often built near water or in the temple of Mehr, the guardian of the sun.

Before lighting the bonfire, priests recited the Atash Niayesh, prayers associated with fire. They ignited the sacred flame at sunset and allowed it to burn all night, while the people sang, danced, and feasted through the night. In the morning, women lit torches from the ritual blaze, brought them to their own hearths and built new fires from the one blessed by the priests, spreading the spirit of Jashneh Sadeh throughout the community.

The preparations began the day before the festival, when teenage boys and adult men headed to the mountains to gather wood, a rare resource in the arid parts of Iran. In modern times, with wood even scarcer, the boys (and sometimes girls) go door to door collecting whatever wood they can find, from broken furniture to branches trimmed from backyard fruit trees. They chant the words: “Give me a branch and God will grant you a wish. Refuse me a branch and God will deny your wish.” Sound a bit like trick or treat?

The winter solstice on December 21 may be the longest night of the year, but Iranians consider the night of Jashneh Sadeh to be the coldest. The tenth of Bahman marks the turning point of winter, and the weather will get warmer as spring approaches.

Zoroastrians around the world still celebrate this mid-winter festival as a religious rite. But many secular Iranians have adopted it as a way to connect with their ancient past. For some, the holiday is a time for slaughtering a ritual lamb and sharing food with the poor. I can’t think of a better way to chase away the winter blues.

Guess Their Religion—The Fire Worshippers of the Atashgah

The Ateshgah temple compound (photo by Nick Taylor)

By Supriya Savkoor

Here we are, in a fairly small, poor town, standing on a not-so-narrow peninsula jutting about 40 km into the Caspian Sea. Its population is only about 200,000. See those old oil rigs and industrial plants off in the distance? They’re mostly abandoned by the Soviets, though some are operational. Head a few hours north, we’d be in Russia itself. Directly west is Armenia. Wedged between the two is the former Soviet republic of Georgia, as well as a tiny border with Turkey. And over there, due east just across the sea, is that curious country of Turkmenistan. Wanna catch a 10-hour ferry ride just to get about 180 miles (roughly 300 km) across? Wait, no international banking in Turkmenistan, you say? Fine, shall we head south into Iran instead? Except what about our visas? Too bad, cause Tehran’s only 300 miles south of here, and we’d only be driving along one of the world’s most gorgeous coasts to get there. Next time. For now, let’s check out one of the more unusual sights around here, shall we?

We’re plop in the middle of little Surakhani, a small suburb outside Baku in Azerbaijan, yet another former Soviet republic. Had you already guessed this? I’m not sure I would have, my knowledge of the Caucasus being painfully limited. Thankfully, my blogmate, Edith McClintock, here at Novel Adventurers, is taking care of that for all of us. But it’s still embarrassing. Not only is Azerbaijain the largest country in the Caucasus, but like Turkey, it’s considered an important crossroads in which east (western Asia) meets west (eastern Europe). It was also the first democratic and secular Muslim country in the world and remains very secular and progressive to this day. And it’s one of the birthplaces of mankind, sitting right at the heart of several ancient civilizations. The earliest films, operas, and theater all hail from this fascinating country as well, and its unique folk traditions, music and dance, go back at least a thousand years.

If being a cultural hotspot weren’t enough, Surakhani—which means “the region of holes” or could refer to the red glow that once emanated from its natural gas reserves—is, quite literally, a geophysical hotspot as well. The Soviets sucked much natural gas and petroleum from the country, back when the rich, dark petroleum literally oozed from the ground, yet two-thirds of the country is still rich in these natural resources. If all its other milestones weren’t enough, natural oil fires once literally rose from the ground as if by magic.

Issued in 1919, an Azerbaijani postage stamp with an
image of the Fire Temple (Scott Cat. no. 9)

Which brings us to the Atashgah, also known as the fire temple of Baku. The area around Baku is filled with ancient mosques and cemeteries, not to mention the remnants of the many invasions this region has experienced. UNESCO has certified literally dozens of World Heritage sites in this area, and the Atashgah is a notable one. Some 15,000 tourists—pilgrims, really—visit the temple annually.

Of course, I didn’t bring you here just for the heck of it. This temple has an unusual pedigree. Not only because notables like Marco Polo and Alexander Dumas visited it or that the Russian czar, Alexander III, reportedly observed religious rituals there. But because of its dubious religious origin.

Many consider the Atashgah Zoroastrian, the ancient Persian religion Heidi and I both keep harping about in this space. Fire, a central element of the Zoroastrian faith, perpetually burns at the center of the temple, of course, and the name of the temple itself hails from the Persian  word for fire, “atash.” For years, an “eternal fire” burned at the Atashgah’s main altar. Turns out it sat right above a natural gas field, causing spontaneous bursts of fire through seven natural surface vents. An incredible natural phenomenon if you ever get to see one. In fact, Azerbaijan has some of the most concentrations of such “natural fires” that spring up around the country. The natural gas under Atashgah became exhausted in 1969, after about a hundred years of Soviet over-exploitation of the area’s natural resources, but ever since, the Baku municipality has piped in gas to keep the fire burning and keep the tourists and pilgrims happy.

Eternal flame in the Atashgah

The compound, compared to a castle in some descriptions, is shaped like a pentagon, with little cottages for the monks who stayed there and a fire altar at the center. The government has since turned the temple into a museum, and in addition to its UNESCO designation, the Azeri president declared it a state historical-architectural reserve in 2007. Zoroastrian symbols at the old temple abound. A Naskh inscription over the entrance to one of the cells uses a couplet to announce the visit of Zoroastrians from Isfahan in the 18^th century. (There's a 10th century atashgah in Isfahan, in fact, one of the few still in Iran, I'm guessing.) The trident sitting atop the Azeri temple structure is thought by some to be a symbol of the Zoroastrian concept of the “good thoughts, good words, and good deeds” Heidi wrote about on Monday. The compound may have been ravaged by Islamic armies during the conquest of Persia, and it’s thought that the “locals” may already have been worshipping around the “seven holes” even before the Hindus arrived.

Yes, not only have Zoroastrians worshipped here over the centuries, but so have Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists. That’s the real rub. The temple might not even be Zoroastrian originally, but Hindu. Sure, the temple’s right in the middle of Central Asia, not even South Asia, and sure, today there aren’t more than a few hundred Azeri residents of Indian descent. Modern scholars and old writings indicate Indian merchants did a lot of trade along this part of the Silk Road, settling down and forming a sizeable community in the late Middle Ages, possibly around the late 1700s. Many of the woodworkers building the trading ships at the time were Indian as well. The growing Indian population may have been responsible for building the temple or renovating an existing one into a Hindu one. Over the centuries, many have written of it primarily as a Hindu temple though. Even historians who are Parsi, that is descended from the Zoroastrians who’d migrated to India, believe it was always a Hindu temple.

Inscriptions from the Atashgah in Baku, with both a Hindu
invocation in Sanskrit as well as a Persian couplet.
From A. V. Williams Jackson’s 1911 book,
From Constantinople to the Home of Omar Khayyam. {PD-US}

And the physical evidence validates it as well. Fire is a common element of both faiths, as is the trident (known as a trishul, as in the one  Lord Shiva carries). But most telling are the Sanskrit and Punjabi inscriptions peppering the structures around the compound. The tribute to the Zoroastrians from Isfahan has its share of typos, and right above it, inscriptions pay tribute to Lord Ganesha and a Hindu goddess known as Jwala Ji—in Sanskrit. Both these inscriptions note the modern calendar year of 1745, the likely date the temple was erected. And get this. Followers of Jwala Ji have long paid tribute to the goddess by lighting either seven or nine fires, much like the fires coming through the seven “holes” under the altar.

There's another really curious little factoid, a side note, I have to share about this place too. If you've read some of my previous posts (such as this one), you may remember mention of the shared ancient history between the Indians and Persians (all Aryans). It turns out a 10th-century Persian geographer by the name of Estakhri wrote that fire worshippers lived not far from Baku. Another 10th-century scholar—Armenian historian, Movses Kaghankatvatsi—confirmed that information, referring to a province called (unbelievably) "Bhagavan." The translation of that word back in the medieval Albanian Caucasus was the "field of gods" or the "fire gods." But what makes this just so fascinating is that in India, regardless of whatever faith you practice, Bhagavan is pretty much the literal translation for God. Wow.


But back to the fire temple of Baku. 

One after another, Europeans visiting the area in the 17^th and 18^th centuries mention the “brahmins,” the “Indian ascetics,” or the worship of the Hindu fire god, Agni, they observed at Atashgah. Some noted distinctions such as the priests’ strict vegetarian diets or their wearing of tilaks on their foreheads. The fire ritual Czar Alexander III observed was, by all accounts, a Hindu one.

Around the time the Russians arrived to cash in on the oil, the Indian traders and merchants began migrating back to their homeland—mostly from the Sindh and Punjab regions of modern-day Pakistan. In their place came Zoroastrians of Persian origin who’d settled in India and came back to ancient Persia to help restore and maintain the temple. Among the many visitors to the temple each year are thousands of Zoroastrians who revere the sacred grounds regardless of which faith built it.

Iranian Zoroastrians at the fire temple in Baku

Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds

Zoroastrian temple near Persepolis

By Heidi Noroozy

The first time my husband and I visited the central Iranian city of Esfahan, our explorations of the city took us to the outskirts, where a Zoroastrian fire temple perches high atop a hill. The structure today is in ruins, not much more than crumbling walls the same color as the yellowish rocky cliff at their base. While there are much better preserved fire temples elsewhere in Iran, this one got me interested in Iran’s Zoroastrian past. Over the years, on subsequent trips, I’ve noticed more influences, from fire and water symbolism to architecture. From epic Persian poetry (such as Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh) to holidays that date back to Zoroastrian times. If you’ve been following my contributions to this blog, you’ve probably also observed some of the ways in which Zoroastrianism continues to influence Persian culture.

The religion is over three thousand years old and follows the teachings of Zoroaster (also known as Zarathustra or Zartoshti, as he’s called in Farsi). Although the exact date of his birth is unknown, Zoroaster probably lived sometime between 1500 and 1000 BC. He recorded his teachings in a series of poems—the Hymns of Zoroaster—which form the most sacred part of the Zoroastrian scripture (the Avesta).

Zoroastrianism was one of the first faiths to believe in a single deity rather than a pantheon of gods and also the concepts of heaven and hell. This duality is expressed in the ongoing battle between Ahura Mazda (the Wise Lord) and Ahriman (the Destructive Spirit), an internal struggle within each human aimed at banishing evil through “good thoughts, good words, good deeds.”

Haft seen

Zoroastrians see fire and water as purifying elements, and these symbols are still common in everyday Iranian life, even if much of the original meaning has been lost. Among these symbols are the mirror and candlesticks that Iranians place in their haft seen arrangements during the Persian New Year. The mirror reflects the candle’s flame like firelight across the surface of a reflecting pool.

The use of rosewater in ceremonies and sprinkled around the house during the spring cleaning ritual called khooneh tekooneh (shaking the house) was also handed down from Zoroastrian times. Iranians still use rosewater to clean Islamic shrines and wash the graves of deceased loved ones.

A number of Iranian holidays are rooted in Zoroastrian traditions. The most important of these celebrations is Eid-e Norooz, or Persian New Year, which takes place on the spring equinox and is kicked off by a Zoroastrian fire festival (Chahar Shanbeh Souri). Another is Shabeh Yalda, the winter solstice, with rituals that reflect the struggle between light and dark, Ahura Mazda and Ahriman. And Tiregan is a Zoroastrian-based midsummer festival that celebrates the rain.

Zoroastrian society of ancient Persia has also left its stamp on Iran’s present-day Islamic Republic. The ancient Zoroastrians had a hierarchical class system, including a high-ranking, hereditary priesthood whose members were known as the magi. The Bible refers to the magi as the three wise men who brought gifts to Jesus at his birth. This priestly class can be seen today in Iran’s clerics (the mullahs and ayatollahs). While these religious ranks are not hereditary anymore, no other Islamic society has anything quite like them.

Farohar image on a plate

Zoroastrianism’s influence extends beyond Persian culture to the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The faith of the ancient Persians introduced concepts such as the Kingdom of God (which Zoroaster called “the chosen government”), five daily prayers (Islam), and resurrection. The early Zoroastrians believed that the soul dwells in the material world for three days after death before rising to the spirit realm, which is reflected in Jesus’s resurrection after his crucifixion.

One of the best known Zoroastrian symbols is the farohar or faravahar, a figure with the wings and tail of a bird and the body of a man. It represents a fravashi (guardian angel) and first appeared on royal inscriptions. I have one in the form of a gold pendant with the farohar encircled by a decorative ring. Modern Zoroastrians interpret the farohar as representing one’s purpose in life—to think good thoughts, speak good words, and do good deeds. Not a bad purpose for any of us to have.

The Wisdom of Fire and Water

Artwork by Roodiparse

In the Zoroastrian religion, fire and water are considered agents of ritual purity. They are among the most basic life-sustaining elements and one complements the other. After all, when fire gets out of hand, what tames it better than water? And the heat of fire evaporates water until nothing is left but steam. Zoroastrians consider fire to be the medium through which spiritual knowledge and wisdom is gained, while water is the source of wisdom. So you really can’t have one without the other.

Once the official religion of the ancient Persians, Zoroastrianism is a minority faith in modern Iran. But its symbols of fire and water persist in almost every aspect of life. Sometimes they are physically present, as in the reflecting pools in front of palaces, mosques and other public buildings, or the ruins of ancient Zoroastrian fire temples that still stand atop hills around the country.

These elements are reflected in rituals as well. During the fire festival on Chahar Shanbeh Souri, which marks the beginning of the Persian New Year (itself a Zoroastrian tradition), people build bonfires in the streets and jump over them in a spiritual cleansing ceremony. And every visit I make to Iran with my husband includes a trip to the cemetery, where we wash the graves of relatives, using water from conveniently placed taps.

You can even spend a pleasant afternoon in Tehran’s Ab o Atesh, a fire-and-water-themed park. (Check it out here:).

To find the purest form of the fire-water duality today, it’s best to go to an imamzadeh, or shrine dedicated to a Shiite saint. The walls are covered with tiny angled mirrors (water) that catch the light (fire) of chandeliers suspended from the high ceilings. I can sit for hours on the carpeted floor of a shrine’s inner sanctum and watch the dazzling dance of these two spiritual elements. If I keep my mind very still, maybe some of the fire’s wisdom will reflect back on me.

The Islamic Republic’s theocratic government prefers to downplay the importance of Zoroastrian symbols and rituals, but for ordinary Iranians, they are just a part of everyday life. The religious significance may have been lost over time, but the practices remain. Many modern Iranians embrace them as a way to connect to their long and rich history, a time when Persia was still a great empire. Dynasties may rise and fall, religions come and go, but these basic elements define who the people are at their core.

Perhaps because I come from a culture that is always looking to the future and all too willing to forget the past, I am fascinated by the way that modern Iranians—religious and secular, traditional and modern—incorporate ancient symbols and rituals so seamlessly into the fabric of their daily lives.

So even I’ll get into the spirit from time to time. When I need a moment of calm, I create my own reflecting pool by placing two lit candles in front of a mirror then watch the flames dance in the reflection. Try it sometime. It’s very relaxing.

Do you have a favorite ritual or symbols that connect you to the past?