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Atashgah of Baku
Atashgah of Baku
The Atəşgah (pronounced as Atashgah) museum is a castle-like building Surakhani, a suburb of greater Baku, Azerbaijan.
The pentagonal complex, which has an courtyard surrounded by cells for monks and a tetrapillar-altar in the middle, was built during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was abandoned after 1883 when oil and gas plants were established in the vicinity. The complex was turned into a museum in 1975 and now enjoys 15,000 visitors a year. It was nominated for World Heritage Site status in 1998.
The toponym 'Ateshgyakh'/'Atashgyakh' (Russian pronunciation) literally means "home of fire", and refers to the fact that the site is situated atop a (now drained) natural gas field which caused natural fires to once burn there. There were once seven natural surface vents in the region, hence also the name 'Surakhani', which means "seven holes with burning flame". The place is also commonly referred to as 'Ateshgah'/'Atashgah' (Persian and Azerbaijani pronunciation) ("place of fire"). Today, the fires in the complex are fed by gas piped in from Baku city, and are only turned on for the benefit of visitors.
History
"According to historical sources, before the construction of the Indian Temple Of Fire (Atashgah) in Surakhani at the end of the 17th [century], the local people also worshiped at this site because of the 'seven holes with burning flame'."[ These "seven holes with burning flame" are the literal meaning of the toponym "Surakhani".
Inscriptions in the temple in Sanskrit (in Nagari Devanagari script) and Punjabi (in Gurmukhi script) identify the sanctity as a place of Hindu and Sikh worship. These inscriptions date from Samvat 1725 to Samvat 1873, which though unambiguous references to the Hindu calendar, cannot be precisely dated since there is more than one Samvat calendar. Samvat 1725 could thus be either c. 1646 CE or c. 1782 CE. However, "local records say that it was built by a prominent Hindu traders community living in Baku and its construction coincided with the fall of the dynasty of Shirwanshahs and annexation by Russian Empire following Russo-Iranian war [of 1722-1723]."
According to A. V. Williams Jackson,[4] the Punjabi language inscriptions are quotations from the Adi Granth. The Sanskrit ones are from the Sati Sri Ganesaya namah, invoke Ganesha, and state that the shrine was built for Jwalaji, the flame-faced goddess worshiped at Jawalamukhi, in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, India.
Also according to Jackson, the oldest reference to the temple is in Jonas Hanway's Caspian Sea, a report from 1753 that is roughly contemporaneous with the inscriptions. Hanway apparently did not visit the temple himself, but bases his account on "the current testimony of many who did see it." He refers to the worshippers as being 'Indians', 'Gaurs', or 'Gebrs' (in common usage, 'Gebr' is synonymous with kafir, that is, a non-Muslim).
Several references from the late 18th century and early 19th century record the site being used as a Hindu temple at that time. Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin's Reise durch Russland (1771) is cited in Karl Eduard von Eichwald's Reise in den Caucasus (Stuttgart, 1834) where the naturalist Gmelin is said to have observed Yogi austerities being performed by devotees. Geologist Eichwald restricts himself to a mention of the worship of Rama, Krishna, Hanuman and Agni. In the 1784 account of George Forster of the Bengal Civil Service, the square structure was about 30 yards across, surrounded by a low wall and containing many apartments. Each of these had a small jet of sulphurous fire issuing from a funnel "constructed in the shape of a Hindu altar." The fire was used for worship, cooking and warmth, and would be regularly extinguished.
"The Ateshgyakh Temple looks not unlike a regular town caravansary - a kind of inn with a large central court, where caravans stopped for the night. As distinct from caravansaries, however, the temple has the altar in its center with tiny cells for the temple's attendants - Indian ascetics who devoted themselves to the cult of fire - and for pilgrims lining the walls."
The fire was once fed by a vent from a subterranean natural gas field located directly beneath the complex, but heavy exploitation of the natural gas reserves in the area during Soviet rule resulted in the flame going out in 1969. Today, the museum's fire is fed by mains gas piped in from Baku city.
Public recognition
Image of the Fire Temple on an Azerbaijan postage stamp from 1919.
An illustration of the Baku Fire Temple was included on two denominations of Azerbaijan's first issue of postage stamps, released in 1919. Five oil derricks appear in the background.
Local legend
Local legend associates the temple at Surakhany with the Fire temples of Zoroastrianism, but this is presumably based on the general identification of any "place of fire" (the common meaning of atashgah) as a Zoroastrian place of worship. While the word also exists in Zoroastrian vocabulary, it is a technical term that denotes the altar-like repository for a sacred wood-fire or for the protected innermost sanctum where that fire altar stands (but not of the greater building around it). The technical meaning derives from Middle Persian gah for "throne" or "bed".
Besides the present-day physical evidence that indicates that the complex was a Hindu place of worship, the existing structural features are not consistent with those for any other Zoroastrian place of worship. That the site may once (prior to the 1780s) have been a Zoroastrian place of worship cannot be ruled out, but there is no evidence to suggest that this may have once been so. The use of natural gas is not in accord with Zoroastrian ritual use.
In 1876, James Bryce visited the place, and remarked that the site was sponsored by the Parsee (i.e. Indian Zoroastrian) community of Bombay. 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 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".
Atashgah of Baku
Atashgah of Baku
The Atəşgah (pronounced as Atashgah) museum is a castle-like building Surakhani, a suburb of greater Baku, Azerbaijan.
The pentagonal complex, which has an courtyard surrounded by cells for monks and a tetrapillar-altar in the middle, was built during the 17th and 18th centuries. It was abandoned after 1883 when oil and gas plants were established in the vicinity. The complex was turned into a museum in 1975 and now enjoys 15,000 visitors a year. It was nominated for World Heritage Site status in 1998.
The toponym 'Ateshgyakh'/'Atashgyakh' (Russian pronunciation) literally means "home of fire", and refers to the fact that the site is situated atop a (now drained) natural gas field which caused natural fires to once burn there. There were once seven natural surface vents in the region, hence also the name 'Surakhani', which means "seven holes with burning flame". The place is also commonly referred to as 'Ateshgah'/'Atashgah' (Persian and Azerbaijani pronunciation) ("place of fire"). Today, the fires in the complex are fed by gas piped in from Baku city, and are only turned on for the benefit of visitors.
History
"According to historical sources, before the construction of the Indian Temple Of Fire (Atashgah) in Surakhani at the end of the 17th [century], the local people also worshiped at this site because of the 'seven holes with burning flame'."[ These "seven holes with burning flame" are the literal meaning of the toponym "Surakhani".
Inscriptions in the temple in Sanskrit (in Nagari Devanagari script) and Punjabi (in Gurmukhi script) identify the sanctity as a place of Hindu and Sikh worship. These inscriptions date from Samvat 1725 to Samvat 1873, which though unambiguous references to the Hindu calendar, cannot be precisely dated since there is more than one Samvat calendar. Samvat 1725 could thus be either c. 1646 CE or c. 1782 CE. However, "local records say that it was built by a prominent Hindu traders community living in Baku and its construction coincided with the fall of the dynasty of Shirwanshahs and annexation by Russian Empire following Russo-Iranian war [of 1722-1723]."
According to A. V. Williams Jackson,[4] the Punjabi language inscriptions are quotations from the Adi Granth. The Sanskrit ones are from the Sati Sri Ganesaya namah, invoke Ganesha, and state that the shrine was built for Jwalaji, the flame-faced goddess worshiped at Jawalamukhi, in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, India.
Also according to Jackson, the oldest reference to the temple is in Jonas Hanway's Caspian Sea, a report from 1753 that is roughly contemporaneous with the inscriptions. Hanway apparently did not visit the temple himself, but bases his account on "the current testimony of many who did see it." He refers to the worshippers as being 'Indians', 'Gaurs', or 'Gebrs' (in common usage, 'Gebr' is synonymous with kafir, that is, a non-Muslim).
Several references from the late 18th century and early 19th century record the site being used as a Hindu temple at that time. Samuel Gottlieb Gmelin's Reise durch Russland (1771) is cited in Karl Eduard von Eichwald's Reise in den Caucasus (Stuttgart, 1834) where the naturalist Gmelin is said to have observed Yogi austerities being performed by devotees. Geologist Eichwald restricts himself to a mention of the worship of Rama, Krishna, Hanuman and Agni. In the 1784 account of George Forster of the Bengal Civil Service, the square structure was about 30 yards across, surrounded by a low wall and containing many apartments. Each of these had a small jet of sulphurous fire issuing from a funnel "constructed in the shape of a Hindu altar." The fire was used for worship, cooking and warmth, and would be regularly extinguished.
"The Ateshgyakh Temple looks not unlike a regular town caravansary - a kind of inn with a large central court, where caravans stopped for the night. As distinct from caravansaries, however, the temple has the altar in its center with tiny cells for the temple's attendants - Indian ascetics who devoted themselves to the cult of fire - and for pilgrims lining the walls."
The fire was once fed by a vent from a subterranean natural gas field located directly beneath the complex, but heavy exploitation of the natural gas reserves in the area during Soviet rule resulted in the flame going out in 1969. Today, the museum's fire is fed by mains gas piped in from Baku city.
Public recognition
Image of the Fire Temple on an Azerbaijan postage stamp from 1919.
An illustration of the Baku Fire Temple was included on two denominations of Azerbaijan's first issue of postage stamps, released in 1919. Five oil derricks appear in the background.
Local legend
Local legend associates the temple at Surakhany with the Fire temples of Zoroastrianism, but this is presumably based on the general identification of any "place of fire" (the common meaning of atashgah) as a Zoroastrian place of worship. While the word also exists in Zoroastrian vocabulary, it is a technical term that denotes the altar-like repository for a sacred wood-fire or for the protected innermost sanctum where that fire altar stands (but not of the greater building around it). The technical meaning derives from Middle Persian gah for "throne" or "bed".
Besides the present-day physical evidence that indicates that the complex was a Hindu place of worship, the existing structural features are not consistent with those for any other Zoroastrian place of worship. That the site may once (prior to the 1780s) have been a Zoroastrian place of worship cannot be ruled out, but there is no evidence to suggest that this may have once been so. The use of natural gas is not in accord with Zoroastrian ritual use.
In 1876, James Bryce visited the place, and remarked that the site was sponsored by the Parsee (i.e. Indian Zoroastrian) community of Bombay. 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 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".