Eternal Flame (Zoroastrianism)

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The four basic elements of life such as fire , water , air and earth , which are used as symbols e.g. B. fertility , go back to the teaching of Zoroaster , when his followers worshiped it, using fire ( Persian آتش Atash or Persian آذر Aser ) as an element and thus attached special importance to the hearths, as it is said in a poem by the Zoroastrian poet of the Persian language Daqiqi from Baktra .

Eternal flame in Zoroastrianism also means those fireplaces (Persian Atashkada ) around which the followers of the Zoroaster performed their ritual prayers, initially in the birthplace of Zarathustra - Baktra, today Balkh or Bactria . That is why they were called "fire worshipers". Since natural gas occurs in these areas of northern Afghanistan, it is obvious that their naturally lit "eternal" flames were fed by this gas and that they had used the fire pits as their ritual fire places of worship and built corresponding stupas .

The Zoroastrians "Atashkada" ( Persian آتشکده) called, the Zoroastrians classified and named different forms of fire differently.

Today there are some traces in the form of ruins, which were particularly built during the times of the Achaemenids . It was they who recorded the Gathas from Bactra in their cuneiform scripts and made Zoroastrianism their state religion in the entire Iranian highlands or Ariana. This teaching is also known as parsism . The seven famous ancient fire temples in the ancient Iranian highlands are:

The Persian poet Nezami , born in Gäncä , today ( Azerbaijan ), writes about the ancient fireplaces in his masterpiece ( Persian هفت پيكر) Haft Peykar (seven portraits or seven beauties).

In the Sassanid dynasty, Zoroastrian teachings were the state religion and in the Greco-Bactrian dynasties, Zoroastrianism was tolerated. The Kushana were predominantly Buddhist ( Buddha statues by Bamiyan ).

In various ruins, such fireplaces have been excavated from those times that point to the Eternal Flames, e.g. B. the 12 m high ruin in Naqsch-e Rostam . Today there is a large parish church in India. In India, too, fire has a purifying function. During the holi festival the Indians throw red paint at each other as a symbol of catharsis , the cultic purification.

In the Indian village of Udvada there is an Eternal Flame that has been burning since the 12th century and serves the followers of Zoroaster, who, according to the fundamental changes in Khorasan and the conquests of the various powers, had to leave their homes and sought refuge in India.

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Remarks

  1. ↑ There are enormous amounts of natural gas in northern Afghanistan. Afghanistan's natural gas rose from 1967 with around 342 million m³ to around 2 billion m³ in 1970 and in 1971 it was around 3 billion m³. The gas was transported directly to the Soviet border through a 97.5 km pipeline. Willy Kraus (Ed.): Afghanistan. Tübingen 1972, p. 31, 331 f.
  2. ↑ Azer or [Azer] (fire) is the 10th month of the Iranian calendar or the zodiac sign , which corresponds to the period from November 21st to December 21st according to the Gregorian calendar. See also Yalda night , birth of light.