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

A Flame Burns In the Desert

Zoroastrian Fire Temple in Yazd. Iran
Photo by Maziart

When the Arabs conquered Persia in the seventh century and imposed Islam as the dominant religion, they assassinated the last Zoroastrian king, Yazdgerd III, and massacred his family. Only one daughter escaped the carnage, Princess Nikbanou. She fled to a cave near Yazd, a city in the Iranian desert, where she begged Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian god, to save her life. In response, the earth opened up and offered refuge from the attackers.

Today, a shrine inside the cave is a major pigrimage site for Zoroastrians from around they world. It’s located near the village of Chak Chak, which means “drop by drop” in Persian, a reference to the dripping spring that marks the spot where Nikbanou disappeared. The drips symbolize the princess’s tears.

Let’s backtrack a thousand years from Nikbanou’s time and visit the Zagros Mountains in modern Iran’s western province of Azerbaijan. A man named Zoroaster (sometimes known as Zarathustra) had a religious vision that changed his life. God appeared to him in the form of Ahura Mazda, a figure with the body of a man and the wings, tail, and claws of a bird.

Zoroaster’s conversation with Ahura Mazda led to the birth of the world’s first monotheistic religion whose philosophy influenced the later faiths that grew in the region: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Zoroaster’s followers were the first to believe in the struggle between good and evil, embodied by the concepts of heaven and hell, as well as a final day of reckoning. At the heart of Zoroastrian philosophy is the trinity of good thoughts, good words, and good deeds, reflecting the idea that humanity’s journey is a struggle for the triumph of light over darkness, salvation over damnation.

Tower of Silence in Yazd Province
Photo by Cate Bramster

This quintessentially Persian religion could also be described as the world’s first Earth-friendly one. Because Zoroastrians believe that the earth is a symbol of purity and represents the good side of the cosmic duality, while death is the ultimate evil, they do not bury their dead in the ground. This would contaminate the earth. Instead, they lay the corpses out on “towers of silence,” tall round structures atop mountains, where the bodies are exposed to the elements and birds of prey. When the flesh is consumed, the bones are raked into an ossuary pit in the center of the tower, avoiding contact with the earth. This practice may seem gruesome to modern sensibilities, but when you consider Zoroastrian philosophy, it makes perfect sense.

Zoroastrians are often mistakenly referred to as “fire worshipers” (atesh parast in Persian). This misunderstanding comes from the Zoroastrian practice of worshipping in front of a flame burning in a fire temple. In fact, the fire is not the object of devotion but a symbol, much like a Christian cross.

At the height of the Persian empire, Zoroastrianism dominated the geography of the ancient world, spanning the territory from Greece to Egypt to India. Today, adherents of the religion have dwindled in numbers along with the empire’s shrinking borders. In Iran today, only 45,000 people out of a total population of 70 million follow the Zoroastrian faith, and some put the Zoroastrian population at far less (10,000 to 15,000). So what happened to them?

A great many fled to India shortly after the Arab Conquest, where they still form the world’s largest Zoroastrian community, known as Parsis. (See Supriya’s post on the Parsis here.) Another wave of Indian migration followed nearly a thousand years later during the Safavid Dynasty (1501—1736). At other times, periods of persecution and forced conversion to Islam caused the population to dwindle further.

In the modern Islamic Republic, the official policy toward religious minorities is one of tolerance, as long as the different faiths do not proselytize or try to convert Muslims. However, official policy doesn’t always mean tolerance in practice, and many Zoroastrians have emigrated in the last 30 years. Zoroastrianism has never had much focus on preaching the faith to others, and Iranian Zoroastrians do not believe in inter-faith marriage, which has caused further attrition. Even in Yazd, the desert city where Princess Nikbanou disappeared, and the country’s holiest Zoroastrian center, the community has shrunk to only 200.

In terms of sheer numbers, Zoroastrians in Iran are indeed a vanishing culture. But when you consider the deep legacy the religion has left in Persian life today, the Zoroastrians are still a very strong presence. Their philosophy is found everywhere from fire and water symbols to Iran’s most important secular holidays (Norouz, the Mehregan harvest festival, and Shabeh Yalda, which celebrates the Winter Solstice), and even architecture, garden design, and the Persian reverence for nature.

Consider this: If you look up the city of Yazd on a map of Iran, you’ll find it at the very center of the country, situated in an oasis between two deserts. At the heart of the city stands a famous fire temple where a flame has been burning continuously for the past 1,500 years.

Does that sense of continuity give you a little chill? It sure does me.

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?