RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIESFig. 6. The Magian Fire Cult (see also fig. Id., reverse)erty.-controlling institutions. Fires that were established by monarchs
and by private individuals were endowed with property for their sup-
port. Family trusts were also established to pay the priests for the
perpetual performance of services for the dead. Although fire temples
could be founded and endowed privately, they were usually part of
the royal domain (M.P. ostan). Under Khusraw Aniishirvan, their
property was listed in a register of religious works (M.P. divan-i kar-
takan).35
At the end of the Sasanian period, the kind of priests called herpats
(M.P., N.P. hirbadh) appear to have been in charge of the cult. The
herpat, whose title means "master of instruction," memorized the
sacred texts, recited them by murmuring (M.P. dranjishn, Ar. zamzama),
and gave instruction in this liturgical tradition. They also prepared
the filter for the sacred beverage (Av. haoma M.P. hOm).36 But in a
passage in which a series of late Sasanian institutions are ascribed to
ArdashIr J, Mas'iidI says that the mobadhiin (mobadh)-the chief
35 M. Boyce, "The Pious Foundations of the Zoroastrians," BSOAS 31 (1968),283-
86; idem, "On the Sacred Fires of the Zoroastrians," BSOAS 31 (1968), 60-61, 63-
64; de Menasce, "Feux et fondations," pp. 23, 25-28.
36 M.-L. Chaumont, "Recherches sur le derge zoroastrien: le herbad," RHR 158
(1960), 55-56, 61-63, 78-80; de Menasce, "L'Eglise mazdeenne dans l'Empire sas-
sanide," Cahiers d'Histoire Mondiale 2 (1955), 557.