MAGIANSThe Magian priesthood combined these judicial responsibilities with
ritual duties such as attending to the fire cult, performing sacrifices,
and reciting the scriptures. The official cult with its royal political
significance was performed in fire temples. There appears to have been
a hierarchy of village (Aduriin) and provincial (Varhriin) fires, and
three famous temples paralleled the theoretical Magian social order:
that of the Farnbag Fire, probably at Kariyan iri Fars, for priests; the
Gushnasp Fire at Shiz in Azerbayjan for soldiers; and the Burzen-Mihr
Fire in the mountains above Nishapur in Khurasan for farmersP Other
fires are mentioned on seals and in texts, but it should be noted that
none of the major fires were located in Sasanian Iraq. In fact, only a
few fire temples are said to have existed there. Fire temples were located
at Irbil,28 at Mada'in,29 near Sura,30 at the village called Atesh Gah
(place of fire) five fariisikh east of Badhibin,31 and one was built by
Biiran at Istiniya near Baghdad.^32 There also seems to have been a
portable fire temple in the Persian camp on the Euphrates frontier in573.^33
Sasanian fire temples were usually square structures with an arched
opening on each side and surmounted by a dome (N.P. chahiir tiiq).
The fire altar with its flame was in the center. No evidence has been
found for the presence of images in fire temples, while there are suf-
ficient expressions of opposition to the religious use of images and of
the destruction of such images by Magians to confirm the aniconic
nature of the cult. The rituals consisted of feeding the fire two or three
times each day, reciting liturgical texts during festivals and for the
spirits ·of the dead, and supervising food offerings and sacrifices (see
fig. 6.)34
By the late Sasanian period, fire temples were also becoming prop-
27 J. Duchesne-Guillemin, l'The Religion of Ancient Iran," in Historia Religionum
(Leiden, 1969), p. 355; idem, La religion de l'Iran ancien, pp. 87-90, 287.
28 Abbeloos, "Acta mar ~ardaghi," pp. 15-16; Chabot, "Jesus-Sabran," p. 497.
29 Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," 11(1), 165.
30 Neusner, History, p. 24.
31 Ibn Rustah, A'liiq, p. 187.
32 Mas'iidi, Mum;, 11, 405. The building called the Chahiir Qapu at Qasr-i Shirin
was probably a monumental fire temple; see o. Reuther, "Sasanian Architecture, A.
History," in A. U. Pope, A Survey of Persian Art (New York, 1938-39),11,552-54).
33 Scher, "Histoire nestorienne," 11(1), 197.
34 Bailey, Zoroastrian Problems, p. "106; M. Boyee, Zoroastrians, Their Religious
Beliefs and Practices (London, 1979), pp. 106-9; de Menasee, "Feux et fondations,"
pp. 46-47; J. Duchesne-Guillemin, "Art et religion sous les Sassanides," in La Persia
nel Medioevo (Rome, 1971), p. 377; idem, La religion de l'Iran ancien, pp. 85-86;
J. C. Tarapore, Pahlavi Andarz-Niimak (Bombay, 1933), p. 9; J. C. Tavadia, "Sur
Saxvan," ]COI 29 (1935), 60-61.