Sacred images in Zoroastrianism

IFire is a sign, not a deity

Followers of Zoroastrianism worship one God, Ahura Mazda, following the teaching of Zarathustra. When they pray, they face a source of light. In a temple that source is a consecrated fire kept burning without interruption. The FAQ page of avesta.org says that fire holds a place of honour because it is a symbol of Asha (truth, order) and of the original light of God, and that prayer is often said in front of a fire.

That is why there is no statue of a deity on this page. Where other religions place a statue, a Zoroastrian temple places a fire vessel. The rest of the page shows what actually surrounds that fire: the stand and the vessel that hold it, the temple, the Faravahar symbol, the portrait of Zarathustra painted by later generations, and the things followers wear on their bodies.

The Greek historian Herodotus, in the 5th century BCE, wrote that the Persians had no images of the gods, no temples and no altars. Iranica notes that the temple cult of fire appeared only in the late Achaemenid period, around the 4th century BCE, and that the Avesta does not mention fire temples. Before that, the fire held in honour was the hearth fire of each household.

IIThe three grades of sacred fire

Temple fires are divided into three grades. Iranica notes that the law of the Sasanian period already recognized a third grade of fire alongside the other two, and that the names of the three grades used today are recorded from the Islamic period. The higher the grade, the more elaborate the consecration and the more priests it requires.

Iranica adds an old Iranian custom: once a year, embers from a Dadgah fire were carried into the presence of an Adaran fire, and embers from an Adaran fire into the presence of an Atash Behram, linking the fires into a chain. The Parsis of India do not follow this custom.

The nine Atash Behram fires

The usual count today is nine Atash Behram fires in the world: eight in India and one in Yazd, Iran. The table below follows Wikipedia. The year given is the year the fire was consecrated or the year the present temple was built.

IIIInside a fire temple

Three names for the temple

In Persian it is called atashkadeh (ātaškada), meaning house of fire. The Parsis of India call it an agiary, a Gujarati word that translates the Persian term literally. After the Arab conquest of Iran, Zoroastrians began to use the name Dar-e Mehr, and this name is now common in Iran and in communities abroad.

The FEZANA glossary uses these names more narrowly: an agiary is a temple housing a fire of the second grade, while a Dar-e Mehr is a temple with no permanently burning fire. Both usages are found, depending on the community.

The fire chamber

A Sasanian temple had a square sanctuary with four pillars carrying a dome, known in Persian as chahar taq (four arches). The fire stood on a pillar-like stand in the middle of that space, where worshippers could see it without entering. Parsi temples keep the same idea: a square fire chamber in the centre, with window openings on three sides so that worshippers can see the fire.

From stone stand to metal vessel

Iranica calls the fire holder an atashdan (ātašdān), place of fire, and points out that the Western term "fire altar" carries religious overtones that the original names do not have. In old Iran it was a pillar of stone or of plastered mud-brick, about waist high, with a deep hollow at the top to hold hot ash. The metal vessel is a Parsi practice. Iranica suggests that it probably goes back to the late 15th century, when the Parsis had to carry their one sacred fire from place to place for more than ten years in a portable fire vessel, and that when the fire reached Navsari a large vessel was made for it on the same model. From the late 19th century, metal vessels imported from India gradually replaced the old pillars in the main temples of Yazd, Kerman and Tehran.

Wikipedia cites a different view: the metal vessel was not a Parsi invention, because Greek historians of the Parthian period described metal vessels used to carry fire, and Sasanian coins of the 3rd and 4th centuries show fire in something like a vessel. Iranica itself also notes that the Sasanian period already had small knee-high fire holders, probably early forms of today's afrinagan.

The boi ceremony: tending the fire five times a day

The sacred fire must burn without interruption and be tended at least five times a day, once for each of the five watches (gah) of the day. The ceremony of tending the fire is called boi, meaning fragrance. The priest places sandalwood on the fire and rings the bell. The priest then offers ash to worshippers on a ladle. Worshippers touch the ash to the forehead and eyelids, and some ask for a little to take home. WZO notes that putting ash on the forehead is a Parsi custom and that Zoroastrians in Iran do not do this.

When standing before the fire, the priest covers his mouth and nose with a white cloth called a padan (padām), so that his breath does not reach the consecrated fire.

Who may enter

In India, non-Zoroastrians may not enter any space from which the fire can be seen. Wikipedia notes that this is a tradition that developed over time rather than a teaching of scripture. In Yazd, non-Zoroastrian visitors may enter the outer hall and see the fire through an amber-tinted glass screen. In 2013 the exhibition The Everlasting Flame at SOAS, London, built a walk-in model of a fire temple, because non-Zoroastrians cannot enter the inside of a real temple in India or Pakistan.

Because of this custom, there are almost no openly licensed photos of the inside of agiaries in India. The photos of fire chambers on this page were taken in London, Yazd and Kerman. The photos from India show only the outside.

IVAncient fire altars

The fire holder appears in Iranian art for more than a thousand years before the metal vessel. Below are a few places where it can still be seen, along with the points on which scholars do not agree.

The tombs of the Achaemenid kings

How to recognize: The king stands on a platform before a fire holder with a pyramid of flames, and above is the winged figure

On the facades of the tombs of Darius and his successors at Naqsh-e Rostam and Persepolis, the king stands before a fire holder with three steps at the top and three at the base. Iranica notes that this holder has exactly the same profile as the fire holders found at Pasargadae. The scene is a carving on a royal tomb, not a place where ordinary people came to worship.

Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, ĀTAŠDĀN (fire holder). Encyclopaedia Iranica, NAQŠ-E ROSTAM.

The two stone plinths at Pasargadae

How to recognize: Two white stone blocks standing in the open plain, one with a flight of steps

These two plinths are often presented as the fire altars of Cyrus. Iranica does not accept this: the plinths have no deep bowl to hold fire, and excavation has shown that they always stood unsheltered in the open, so they could not have served an ever-burning fire. Also at Pasargadae, fragments of two or three real fire holders of white stone have been found, with hollow tops to hold ash, dated to the time of Cyrus.

Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, ĀTAŠDĀN (fire holder).

The two rock structures at Naqsh-e Rostam

How to recognize: Two blocks side by side, each cut into four pillars carrying a vault

The ĀTAŠDĀN article in Iranica treats them as the best-known pair of open-air fire altars in Fars, used only on special occasions and for short periods. The NAQŠ-E ROSTAM article in the same encyclopedia says that they are generally assumed to be Sasanian fire altars, but that the archaeologist Dietrich Huff identifies them as astodans, that is, ossuaries. The library records both.

Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, ĀTAŠDĀN (fire holder). Encyclopaedia Iranica, NAQŠ-E ROSTAM.

Sasanian coins

How to recognize: The king's portrait on the front, a fire altar on the back, often with a figure standing on each side

The Arsacid king Valaxsh I was the first Iranian king to put a fire holder on the back of his bronze coins, in place of the statue of a deity. The Sasanians made this standard practice. Most Sasanian silver drachms show a fire altar, which may stand for the king's own fire. Under Ardashir I the altar appears alone. From Shapur I onward a figure stands on each side. From Shapur II onward both figures wear the royal crown, showing the king performing religious duties at the altar. From Hormizd II to Yazdgerd I a bust with curled hair appears above the altar.

Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, ĀTAŠDĀN (fire holder). Encyclopaedia Iranica, SASANIAN COINAGE. Encyclopaedia Iranica, ĀTAŠ (fire), article by Mary Boyce. Cleveland Museum of Art, Drachm 1965.316.b.

Adur Gushnasp at Takht-e Soleyman

How to recognize: Ruins of brick and stone around a lake on a hilltop

Adur Gushnasp was one of the three great fires of ancient Iran, associated with the warrior estate and with the king. In the late Sasanian period each king made a pilgrimage there on foot after his coronation. In 623 the Byzantine emperor Heraclius sacked the temple. The fire was reinstalled and went on burning for many generations after the coming of Islam, probably going out by the end of the 10th or the early 11th century. Excavators found the three-stepped base of the great fire's holder and many smaller stone fire holders. UNESCO inscribed the site on the World Heritage List in 2003 and calls it the principal sanctuary of Zoroastrianism in the Sasanian period.

Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, ĀDUR GUŠNASP. Encyclopaedia Iranica, ĀTAŠDĀN (fire holder). UNESCO World Heritage List, Takht-e Soleyman. Britannica, Zoroastrianism: Practices and institutions.

VFaravahar, the winged figure

A man emerging from a winged circle is the most recognizable symbol of Zoroastrianism today. It appears on the facades of many modern fire temples. But it is not a cult image, and its history is longer than its name.

According to Wikipedia, the winged disc did not originate in Iran: it comes from the winged god Assur of Mesopotamia and had been used in the Near East for thousands of years. The Achaemenid kings had it carved at Persepolis, at Behistun and on their tombs. After the Achaemenid period it almost disappeared from Persian art: the Parthians and the Sasanians did not use it.

Its use as the emblem of the religion belongs to the 20th century. Wikipedia says that the image re-emerged thanks to two articles by the Parsi scholar Jamshedji Maneckji Unvala in 1925 and 1930, and that sentence on Wikipedia is still marked as needing a citation. Iranica notes that in both Iran and India there are modern fire temples deliberately decorated after the ruins of Persepolis, with the winged figure in a disc and bull capitals. The FEZANA glossary defines the farohar or fravashi as a guardian spirit that exists before and after each human being.

VIOhrmazd on the rock face and the portrait of Zarathustra

Sasanian investiture reliefs

There is one place in Iranian art where Ahura Mazda (Ohrmazd in Middle Persian) appears in human form: the investiture reliefs of the Sasanian kings. Iranica describes Ohrmazd there as a dignified male figure, standing or on horseback, wearing a turreted crown and sometimes holding the barsom, the priests' bundle of rods. This is court art, carved on cliff faces to declare that royal power is granted by heaven. The reliefs do not stand in temples, and no one makes offerings before them.

The portrait of Zarathustra

Many Zoroastrian homes and community halls hang a picture of an old man with a long beard, a white robe, a halo around his head and eyes raised upward. It is not a true portrait. No image of Zarathustra survives from his own time. Wikipedia notes that a figure on the 4th century relief at Taq-e Bostan, with a radiant halo around his head and holding a barsom, was once taken to be Zarathustra. Scholars now identify the figure as the god Mithra. That figure was the source of a widely circulated 19th century painting, and that painting in turn gave rise to most of today's pictures. The 19th century pictures usually show him bearded and gazing upward, influenced by religious portraits of the same period.

The library shows only a print from 1906, so that readers can see where this conventional image comes from, and does not use a picture of Zarathustra as a button in the Main Hall. The picture is an object of remembrance, not an object of worship: followers pray before fire or light, not before the picture.

VIIIn the home and on the body of the faithful

Most Zoroastrian prayer takes place at home or outdoors, by each person alone. WZO writes that in private, people pray in front of some form of light: preferably fire or the sun, at night the moon, a candle, or sometimes an electric light. Iranica notes that for about the first 500 years in India the Parsis had only one temple fire, so for most of them the hearth fire at home was the focus of worship.

Sudreh and kusti

sedreh, kushtiHow to recognize: A white undershirt and a white woollen cord wound three times around the waist

These are the two things a follower wears for life, received at the initiation ceremony called navjote (in Iran, sedreh pushi). Britannica gives the age of initiation as seven in India and ten in Iran. The kusti is a cord of six strands, each of twelve white woollen threads, 72 threads in all, matching the 72 chapters of the Yasna. It is wound three times around the waist and tied with two knots, one in front and one at the back. Several times a day the follower unties and reties it with prayers, facing the sun, and at night facing an oil lamp, a fire, the moon or the stars.

Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, KUSTĪG. Britannica, Zoroastrianism: Practices and institutions. Wikipedia, Navjote. FEZANA (Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America), Zoroastrian Global Glossary.

Dakhma: funerary architecture, not a place of worship

A dakhma, commonly called a tower of silence, is a round, roofless structure built on a hill, where bodies are laid out for birds of prey so that they do not pollute earth, water and fire. Britannica gives the height of the towers as about 8 metres, built of brick or stone. According to Wikipedia, the top of the tower is divided into three concentric rings for men, women and children, and the bones fall into a pit in the centre. The Zoroastrians of Yazd used their tower until 1974. The Parsis of Mumbai still keep this practice at Doongerwadi on Malabar Hill, but the number of vultures has fallen by more than 97 percent. There are no images inside the tower. Iranica notes that near each tower there is usually a small building with a Dadgah fire for the souls of the departed, or a lamp in its place.

VIIIFire temples across the regions

Wikipedia gives the number of followers worldwide as about 110,000 to 120,000, most of them living in India, Iran and North America, and also cites other estimates that differ widely from this figure. In 2021 there were 167 fire temples: 45 in Mumbai, 105 in the rest of India and 17 in other countries.

Iran: Yazd, Kerman, Tehran

After the coming of Islam, most fire temples were destroyed or turned into mosques. Zoroastrians kept their fires in low mud-brick buildings that looked like ordinary houses, and hid the fire in a small room behind a tiny cupboard-like door. Only priests crept in to tend the fire, and lay people gave up seeing it so that it could survive in safety. From the late 19th century, as oppression slowly eased, Dar-e Mehrs were rebuilt on a larger scale. The Atash Behram temple in Yazd was built in 1934 with funds from the association of Parsi Zoroastrians of India. Its fire is stated to have been burning since about 470, kept in turn at Larestan, Aqda, Ardakan and then Yazd. The words "is stated to" appear in the source itself.

Source: Encyclopaedia Iranica, ĀTAŠKADA (fire temple). Encyclopaedia Iranica, ĀTAŠ (fire), article by Mary Boyce. Wikipedia, Yazd Atash Behram.

Iran: Chak Chak (Pir-e Sabz)

This shrine on a cliff face in the desert of Yazd province is considered the most sacred of the mountain shrines of the religion. According to legend, Princess Nikbanou, daughter of King Yazdegerd III, fled here from the Arab army, prayed to Ahura Mazda, and the mountain opened to shelter her. Water that drips all year round in the grotto gives the shrine the name Chak Chak, "drip, drip". Every year from 14 to 18 June, followers from Iran, India and many other countries come here on pilgrimage. Inside the grotto a fire burns continuously, the floor is paved with stone, the walls are blackened by smoke, and the doors are of bronze.

Source: Wikipedia, Chak Chak, Yazd.

India: Udvada, Navsari, Surat, Mumbai

The Parsis are descendants of Zoroastrians who left Iran for Gujarat. Britannica says that tradition places their arrival in the 8th century, but that it may have been as late as the 10th century. Their Iranshah fire is now at Udvada. Wikipedia says that the fire was consecrated at Sanjan in 721, moved many times (the Bahrot caves, Vansda, Navsari, Surat, Valsad) and finally came to Udvada, to a temple built in 1742. Iranica instead says that the Parsis founded this fire after settling at Sanjan in 936. The two sources differ by more than two hundred years. Most Parsi temples were built in the 19th and early 20th centuries in local styles, sometimes with an element of British Victorian. Iranica notes that some modern temples are decorated after the ruins of Persepolis, and that one temple in Bombay has guardian animals at its entrance. The photo of the Maneckji Seth Agiary below shows two winged bulls at the gate of an agiary.

Source: Britannica, Parsi. Wikipedia, Udvada Atash Behram. Encyclopaedia Iranica, ĀTAŠ (fire), article by Mary Boyce. Encyclopaedia Iranica, ĀTAŠKADA (fire temple). Wikipedia, Atash Behram.

Britain and North America

In London, the Zoroastrian Trust Funds of Europe (founded on 31 October 1861, with about 5,000 members) has its home at the Zoroastrian Centre in Rayners Lane, a former Art Deco cinema that is a listed building. In North America, Zoroastrian associations are joined in the FEZANA federation, and temples are usually called Dar-e Mehr. The fire chamber in London is one of the few fire chambers with openly licensed photos.

Source: Wikipedia, Zoroastrian Centre. FEZANA (Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America), Zoroastrian Global Glossary. Wikipedia, Fire temple.

Azerbaijan: the Ateshgah of Baku

The Ateshgah at Surakhani near Baku is often presented as a Zoroastrian fire temple. The sources the library has read point elsewhere. This pentagonal complex was built in the 17th and 18th centuries. Of the 17 inscriptions on its walls, 14 are Hindu, 2 are Sikh and 1 is in Persian. The Hindu and Sikh inscriptions are in Sanskrit or Punjabi. The scholar A. V. Williams Jackson remarked that the features described by early travellers are Indian, not Zoroastrian. In 1925 the Parsi priest and scholar J. J. Modi went there himself and concluded that it was not an atashkadeh of his own religion but a Hindu temple. Wikipedia also notes that it cannot be ruled out that the site was once a Zoroastrian place of worship, and that Zoroastrians from India still visit it. The natural gas flame went out in 1969 after nearly a century of oil and gas extraction, and the complex became a museum in 1975. Iranica mentions only a theory that the name Baku may be linked to an old fire temple at an oil site.

Source: Wikipedia, Ateshgah of Baku. Encyclopaedia Iranica, BAKU i. General.

Ancient Central Asia

Traces of the religion remain in pre-Islamic Central Asia. The Sogdians around Samarkand kept the bones of the dead in terracotta ossuaries, and a 7th to 8th century ossuary from Mullakurgan shows priests on its body. Iranica mentions a suggestion that Zoroastrians sometimes set sacred fires in shrines taken over from other religions, and cites Kara Tepe near Termez, in ancient Bactria: in a niche of a Buddhist shrine, a hastily built mud-brick fire holder has been found.

Source: Wikipedia, Sogdian art. Encyclopaedia Iranica, ĀTAŠ (fire), article by Mary Boyce.

IXWhat the library is not sure of

XPhotos and licences

Every photo on this page comes from Wikimedia Commons, under Public domain, CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA licences. Authors and licences are given exactly as on the original file pages, read on 07/10/2026. The photos have only been reduced in size, with no change to their content. Click the name of a photo to go to its original file page. If you are an author and see an incorrect credit, please let the library know so it can be corrected.

XISources

The pages above were read in October 2026. If a page has changed its address, please let the library know so it can be updated.

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