Atashgah Zoroastrian Fire Temple, Surakhani, Baku Azerbaijan

We saw Joanna Lumley’s video of her trip to Baku and the Ateshgah – I was surprised that a foreigner had gone inside a Fire Temple as in India, we are banned from entering Fire Temples – these are strictly for the Parsi community. Hence on our Azerbaijan trip, a visit to Ateshgah was required as it would be an unusual educational experience.

Source Wikipedia – “The Persian wordAteshgah (with Russian/Azerbaijani pronunciation: Atashgyakh/Ateshgah) literally means "home of fire." The Persian-origin term atesh (آتش) means "fire", and is a loanword in Azerbaijani; it is etymologically related to the Vedic अथर्वन् atharvan. Gah (گاہ) derives from Middle Persian and means "throne" or "bed" and it is cognate with Sanskrit gṛha गृह for "house", which in popular usage becomes gah. The name refers to the fact that the site is situated atop a now-exhausted natural gas field, which once caused natural fires to spontaneously burn there as the gas emerged from seven natural surface vents. A historical alternative name for Azerbaijan is Odlar Yurdu, which means "land of fires" in Azerbaijani.

"The name Surakhani, the town where the Ateshgah is situated, is likely derived from the Persian word suraakh, meaning "hole," and may thus be interpreted as "a region of holes". Alternatively, it could also allude to the fiery glow of the area, stemming from the Persian term sorkh or surkh, meaning "red". The Sanskrit etymology of Surakhany conveys the meaning "mine of the gods", derived from sura, meaning "gods", who are opposed to the asuras, or demons. Surakhany in Tati (the language of Surakhany, close to Persian) means “hole with the fountain”.

"Surakhany is located on the Absheron Peninsula, which is famous for being a locality where oil oozes naturally from the ground and flames burn perpetually — as at Yanar Dagh — fed by natural hydrocarbon vapours issuing from the rock”. 

"About the construction of the first Ateshgah temple proclaims Mobed Mobedan’s writing on the “Kaaba of Zoroastr” (III century A.D.), which also informs that he founded sacred temples in Transcaucasia region and assigned the priests to serve there. Arab geographer Estakhri in 930 mentioned that not far from Baku, the settlements of Zoroastrians existed. But eventually when Islam was asserted as the main religion in Azerbaijan local people desisted to visit the fire temples including Ateshgah which later had been decayed”. 

“Based on Iranian and Indian inscriptions, the temple was used as a Hindu, Sikh, and Zoroastrian place of worship. "Ātash" is the Persian and Azerbaijani word for fire.The pentagonal complex, which has a courtyard surrounded by cells for monks and a tetrapillar-altar in the middle, was built during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was abandoned in the late 19th century, probably due to the decline of the Indian population in the area and the establishment of petroleum plants in Surakhany. The natural eternal flame was extinguished in 1969, after nearly a century of petroleum and gas extraction in the area, and is now maintained using a piped gas supply. 

“The Baku Ateshgah was a pilgrimage and philosophical centre of Zoroastrians from the northwestern Indian subcontinent, who were involved in trade with the Caspian area via the famous "Grand Trunk Road". The four holy elements of their belief were: ateshi (fire), badi (air), abi (water), and heki (earth). The complex was converted into a museum in 1975. The annual number of visitors to the museum is about 15,000. 

We drove to Ateshgah after seeing the mud volcanoes and the petroglyphs. A distance of 180 kms. There is nothing much to see en route. It was cloudy and extremely windy – very cold around 12-15 degs. The compound is huge and even if there are a dozen coaches parked, there will still be ample space. After a quick lunch in a dining room full of very noisy shouting fellow Indian tourists, we rushed across to the Ateshgah. 

The entrance is narrow and small. Inside is a large rectangular walled compound. First reaction – see a central small building housing a large flame and around it are mounds with flames and tourists walking on designated paths.  

“The Temple of Fire "Ateshgah" was nominated for inclusion on the List of World Heritage Sites, UNESCO in 1998 by Gulnara Mehmandarova. On December 19, 2007, it was declared a state historical-architectural reserve by decree of the President of Azerbaijan”.

"The shrine complex, which had previously been administered as part of the "Shirvanshah Palace Complex State Historical and Architectural Museum-Reserve," was officially designated as a separate reserve named the "Ateshgah Temple State Historical Architectural Reserve". 

"According to the German traveller E. Kaempfer who visited Azerbaijan in 1683: “from the middle of XVII century pilgrims started to rebuild the temple again. In the beginnings of the XIX century the temple received the form which is represented today without any changes. The temple’s plan is five corner complex with an entrance portal surrounded with battlement type walls”.

"Fire is considered sacred in Hinduism and Zoroastrianism (as Agni and Atar, respectively), and there has been debate on whether the Atashgah was originally a Hindu structure, or a Zoroastrian one. The trident mounted atop the structure is usually a distinctly Hindu sacred symbol (as the Trishula, which is commonly mounted on temples) and has been cited by Zoroastrian scholars as a specific reason for considering the Atashgah as a Hindu site. However, an Azerbaijani presentation on the history of Baku, which calls the shrine a "Hindu temple", identifies the trident as a Zoroastrian symbol of "good thoughts, good words and good deeds" even though the trident symbol is not associated with Zoroastrianism".

"Seven holes with eternal fires" were mentioned by German traveler Engelbert Kaempfer, who visited Surakhany in 1683. 

"The temple was last restored in 1975. Today within the low, dark cells for monks and pilgrims in the Ateshgah Temple is an interesting museum, intended to introduce the rudiments of Zoroastrianism to the uninitiated.

There are also a set of glass units displaying religious vestments, utensils and other items which feature in the daily life of the priests. 

"There are a total of 17 inscriptions on the Ateshgah, of which fourteen are Hindu, two are Sikh, and one is Persian. They are all in either Sanskrit or Punjabi, with the exception of one Persian inscription that occurs below an accompanying Sanskrit invocation to Lord Ganesha and Jwala Ji.  Although the Persian inscription contains grammatical errors, both the inscriptions contain the same year date of 1745 Common Era (Samvat/संवत 1802/१८०२ and Hijri 1158/١١٥٨). Taken as a set, the dates on the inscriptions range from Samvat 1725 to Samvat 1873, which corresponds to the period from 1668 CE to 1816 CE. This, coupled with the assessment that the structure looks relatively new, has led some scholars to postulate the 17th century as its likely period of construction.One press report asserts that local records exist that state that the structure was built by the Baku Hindu traders community around the time of the fall of the Shirvanshah dynasty and annexation by the Russian Empire following the Russo-Persian War (1722–1723).

"There is a famed shrine to Jwala Ji in the Himalayas, in the settlement of Jawalamukhi, in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, India to which the Atashgah bears strong resemblance and on which some scholars (such as A. V. Williams Jackson) suggested the current structure may have been modeled. However, other scholars have stated that some Jwala Ji devotees used to refer to the Kangra shrine as the 'smaller Jwala Ji' and the Baku shrine as the 'greater Jwala Ji'. Other deities mentioned in the inscriptions include Ganesha and Shiva. The Punjabi language inscriptions are quotations from the Adi Granth, while some of the Sanskrit ones are drawn from the Sat Sri Ganesaya namah text. 

 "The temple was examined in the late 19th and early 20th century by Parsi dasturs, some of whom had also visited the Jwala Ji at Kangra in the Himalayas.  Based on the inscriptions and the structure, their assessment was that the temple was a Hindu and Sikh shrine. In 1925, a Zoroastrian priest and academic Jivanji Jamshedji Modi traveled to Baku to determine if the temple had indeed been once a Zoroastrian place of worship. Until then (and again today), the site was visited by Zoroastrian pilgrims from India. In his Travels Outside Bombay, Modi observed that "not just me but any Parsee who is a little familiar with our Hindu or Sikh brethren's religion, their temples and their customs, after examining this building with its inscriptions, architecture, etc. would conclude that this is not a [Zoroastrian] Atash Kadeh but is a Hindu Temple whose Brahmins (priests) used to worship fire. 

We went to see the source of the Fire and were impressed with the way the whole complex is maintained. It shows various aspects of Zoroastrian life. When I started writing this blog, I learnt about the influence of Hinduism and other religions ! This has confused me. I leave it to you to decide the past based on what you have read but to me, this site is definitely linked to Zoroastrianism. It was well worth the long trip from Baku.

Most of the text is from Wikipedia which has all this interesting background information.