The Zoroastrian Fire Temple

Fire has been at the centre of Zoroastrian worship for as long as the religion has been recorded. The ancient hymns attributed to Zarathustra speak of fire as a sign of truth, and reliefs on the rock-cut tombs of the Achaemenid kings at Naqsh-e Rustam show the king standing before a fire altar. Yet the Greek historian Herodotus noted in the fifth century BCE that the Persians had neither temples nor statues and worshipped in the open. Most historians therefore think that fires were first kept in homes and at open-air altars, and that temples built specially to house a perpetual fire came later.

When and why the first fire temples appeared is debated. The scholar Mary Boyce argued that they arose in the later Achaemenid period, perhaps as a Zoroastrian answer to the introduction of temples with statues of the goddess Anahita. What is certain is that by the Sasanian period (224–651 CE) Iran was covered with fire temples of different ranks, supported by kings and nobles. Many were built as a domed square on four arches, a form known as the chahar taq. Three great fires stood above the rest, among them Adur Gushnasp, the fire of the warriors and kings, whose sanctuary at Takht-e Soleyman survives as an impressive ruin.

After the Arab conquest of Iran in the seventh century, Zoroastrians gradually became a minority, and most temples were abandoned or converted. Communities survived above all around Yazd and Kerman. According to the Qissa-i Sanjan, a Parsi account written around 1600, a group of Zoroastrians sailed to Gujarat and consecrated a great fire at Sanjan; this fire, the Iranshah, was moved several times before settling at Udvada in 1742. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries prosperous Parsi families in Bombay, Surat and Navsari built many new temples, and Parsi donors later helped Iranian Zoroastrians build the present Atash Behram in Yazd.

Zoroastrians distinguish three grades of temple fire. The humblest, the Dadgah, is a fire of household rank that may in some circumstances be tended by a lay person. The Atash Adaran, the usual fire of a Parsi neighbourhood temple or agiary, is consecrated from the fires of households of the four traditional classes of society. The Atash Behram, the highest grade, is assembled from sixteen fires of different origin, including fire from lightning and fires from the hearths of various trades, each purified many times before they are united in rituals that last for months. It requires a large body of priests to serve it.

Day and night, the fire must never go out. At each of the five watches (gah) of the day, a priest performs the boi ceremony: he washes, enters the sanctuary with his mouth covered, places sandalwood on the fire, recites prayers, moves around the urn and rings the bell. Ash from the fire is collected and offered to worshippers, who touch it to their forehead. The fire is regarded as a living presence, almost as a person, and the anniversary of its consecration is celebrated with prayers and a communal meal.

Lay Zoroastrians visit when they wish rather than at fixed services. After washing and retying their sacred cord, they enter the prayer hall, bow towards the fire, hand their offering of sandalwood to be placed on it, and pray, often reciting prayers from memory in the ancient Avestan language. Temples are busiest at the New Year (Navruz) and during the days at the end of the year when the souls of the departed are remembered. Thanksgiving ceremonies (jashan) and the initiation of children into the faith (navjotenavjote The initiation in which a Zoroastrian child receives the sacred shirt and cord. Glossary or sedreh-pushi) may be held in the temple or in halls nearby.

Behind all these rules lies the Zoroastrian concern with purity. Fire, water and earth are good creations that must be shielded from pollution, which is associated with death, decay and the forces of evil. The priest’s mouth cloth, the washing before prayer, the separation of the sanctuary and the restriction of entry all serve to keep the fire pure. In India these rules have been interpreted to exclude non-Zoroastrians, including, in some cases, the spouses and children of Parsis who married outside the community, and this has long been a subject of debate within the community.

Fire temples look very different in Iran and India. Iranian temples are often low, inward-looking buildings of mud brick or stone around a courtyard, reflecting centuries in which Zoroastrians avoided drawing attention. The Atash Behram in Yazd, built in the twentieth century with a portico and a pool before it, displays its fire behind glass, and visitors of any faith may see it. In the villages around Yazd, smaller temples and mountain shrines such as Chak Chak draw pilgrims every year.

Parsi temples in India range from simple neighbourhood agiaries to the grand Atash Behrams of Mumbai, Surat, Navsari and Udvada. Many look from the street like Indian town houses or colonial buildings; others, built in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, adopted a revival style that recalls ancient Persepolis, with stone winged bulls and the faravahar on their facades. Udvada, a quiet coastal town in Gujarat, is the main place of Parsi pilgrimage because of the Iranshah fire.

In the diaspora, Zoroastrians in Britain, North America and Australia have built community centres, often called Dar-e Mehr, with prayer rooms where a fire is lit for ceremonies. Because the consecration and constant care of a temple fire demands a priesthood and strict rules of purity, very few consecrated fires have been established outside Iran and India, and communities continue to discuss how the old forms can be carried on far from their homeland.