The Ateshgah of Baku, also known as the Fire Temple of Baku, is a religious building that resembles a castle and is located in Surakhany town, a suburb of Baku, Azerbaijan. Atashgah, a toponym in Persian, literally translates as House of Fire. Azerbaijani borrows the word Atesh and from Persian. The temple was a centre of worship for the Zoroastrian, Hindu, Sikh, and Persian religions, according to Persian and Indian inscriptions. The Persian term for fire is Atash. The tetrapillar-altar in the centre of the pentagonal structure, features a courtyard enclosed by monk-quarters and was constructed between the 17th and 18th centuries. Due to the declining Indian population in the region, it was deserted in the late nineteenth century. Zoroastrians from the Northwestern Indian Subcontinent, who engaged in trade with the Caspian region, used Baku Ateshgah as a place of pilgrimage and as a philosophical hub. Some claim that the architecture of the temple is in the traditional Sasanian fashion. They considered ateshi (fire), badi (air), abi (water), and heki (earth) to be the four sacred elements. In terms of their respective religions, Jonas Hanway, an early European critic, lumped Zoroastrians, Sikhs, and Hindus together as ::- These opinions, with a few alterations, are still maintained by some of the posterity of the ancient Indians and Persians, who are called Gebers or Gaurs, and are very zealous in preserving the religion of their ancestors; particularly in regard to their veneration for the element of fire. There is also a controversy over whether the Atashgah was originally a Zoroastrian or a Hindu edifice because fire is revered in both religions (under the names Agni and Atar, respectively). Zoroastrian academics have specifically noted the trident set atop the structure as a cause for interpreting the Atashgah to be a Hindu site (as the Trishula, which is frequently mounted on temples). Given though the trident emblem is not connected to Zoroastrianism, an Azerbaijani presentation on the history of Baku, which refers to the sanctuary as a Hindu temple, defines the trident as a Zoroastrian symbol of — Good thoughts, Good Words, and Good Deeds. In 1975, the compound was transformed into a museum. [Information and Image Credit :: Ateshgah_of_Baku, Wikipedia] [image : 1. Atəşgah, Azerbaijan; 2. Guebre Ceremony in Ateshgah Temple] [Images Availed Under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International and Public Domain Work (Please Relate to Individual Image URLs for More Usage Property)] [Original Source Image URLs : 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jahlinmarceta_baku_temple.jpg 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Guebre_ceremony_in_Ateshgah.jpg ] #Architecture
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Monuments and Architecture
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