[Editor’s Note: All photos are taken by the author.]
There are numerous pirs, Zoroastrian saint pilgrimage sites, in Iran, but according to Iranian scholars Mary Boyce, Michael Fischer and the Iranian Heritage Institute, the six main ones are all near the ancient city of Yazd, which lies near the center of the country. According to Mary Boyce in her article “Bibi Shahrbanu and the Lady of Pars”:
A study of the Zoroastrian cult of these shrines is not without complexity. In the observances there the high ethical teachings of Zoroaster are certainly not forgotten; but the Yazdis are tenacity itself, and they appear also to maintain some of the ritual of the old Iranian religion, practiced in Persia before the coming of the prophet and reformed by him to a still undetermined extent. Together with such rites of unknown antiquity, there exist also certain superficial concessions, largely in terminology, made in modern times to Islam, to secure a measure of respect for these holy places and save them from desecration.[i]
She goes on to explain that the generic story now told about these sites relates back to legends of the Arab invasion in 649, when King Yazdegird III’s family fled to Yazd. When they weren’t safe even in the desert city, the children escaped to the mountains where they asked Ahura Mazda for help and he opened up the various mountains to them; they found shelter and nourishment within the rocks. Only the Queen didn’t make it to the mountains as she was too exhausted from the journey. Calling for help as she fell to the ground, the earth accepted her. A well shrine is dedicated to her.
Two of these sites demonstrate a progression in the generic narrative and are of particular interest for this paper, Pir-e Sabz, ‘Green Saint,’ one of the main Zoroastrian pilgrimage sites worldwide, and Pir-e Banu about 100 km west as the bird flies from Pir-e Sabz or 115 km from Yazd on dirt roads, which is the easier, though still quite arduous, way to get there. Both sites relate similar stories to those of Bibi Qyz and Bibi Parau.
The site of Pir-e Sabz is colloquially referred to as Chak Chak, which means ‘drip, drip’ for the waters that sprang from the mountain when Princess Nikbanu asked for something to drink to quench her thirst and for refuge. In the story, Princess Nikbanu was one of the daughters of Yazdegird III, the last Sassanian king (r. 633-649/650), who fled the Arab invaders in 649 both to protect her Zoroastrian faith from the Muslim invaders as well as to keep the royal Persian-Aryan bloodline free from ‘Arab contamination’.[ii] While there is little archeological evidence to support the story, it is one that has become ingrained in popular belief. According to historians, there are a number of versions of what happened to Yazdegird III’s family. One rendition states that the family was together when the Arabs caught up with them in what is now Turkmenistan, another that one of his daughters, Shahrbanu was captured and married Husayn, and that his son Firoz II escaped with the family to Tajikistan and from there he went on to China to offer his services to the T’ang emperor.[iii] Regardless of historical veracity, the legends offer a different truth.
Chak Chak lies in the middle of a mountain ridge in the center of a desolate desert about a third of the way up a very steep rocky slope. There is a small stream at the foot of the mountain range that flows from a waterfall at the site. As at Nokhur, there is a sacred tree that springs out of the water creating an abundance of greenery in the middle of a sea of dusty sand. The greenery amidst the rocks gives the site its official name, Pir-e Sabz; sabz means green. Oddly, the tree is appropriate to the Zoroastrian shrine as it has two trunks from the same core that rise out of the now cement covered floor and out the ceiling on the southern side of the fire temple shrine. The shrine itself has a fairly new lotus petal fire altar in the middle of the room with water seeping through the rock face on the western wall. The northern side of the shrine belongs to the mountain. Pilgrims come throughout the year, including Muslims, to honor the mountain, its water and the woman who found refuge. As with the other sites, there are particular high holy days for worship, which for this site is generally around mid-June. Sacrifices were made during these holidays, and Chak Chak was renown as the site for sacrificing sheep, which ties it back to much earlier traditions.
The Pir-e Banu site is also associated with a descendant of Yazdegird III, the Princess Banu Pars. Banu is another Persian term for “Lady” and may well stem from a title offered to the ancient goddess of water, Anahita, or Anahid. [iv] Princess Banu Pars is said to have made her escape from the Arabs through the desert to near the current village of Erdinjan, where she came across a peasant with a cow. She begged him for a drink and he milked the cow for her, but the beast kicked the bowl out his hands before he could give it to her. As the invaders were approaching she broke away stumbling over boulders along a dried up riverbed, until exhausted she fell to the ground and begged Ahura Mazda for help. The mountain rock opened and she slipped inside, as it closed in front of the invaders, a piece of her veil became stuck. They say that a fragment of the cloth was still visible until about a 100 years ago by which time it had been worn away by faithful pilgrims grasping at it.
The shrine is set, not high in the mountains, but on a rocky platform a few feet above a river-bed, at a place which in times of rain becomes a tremendous watersmeet. The sacred rock is beside the highest of three confluent river-courses, where flood-water comes pouring down from an upper mountain basin to the west, through a narrow gorge. Just below the shrine two other river-courses meet, from north and south, and the water of all three confluents rushes down to join a fourth, flowing in again from the south. A great mountain ridge then blocks their path, and the combined torrent, racing eastward, is forced to swing north and so churn its way round this barrier out onto the plain. The setting is superb one for an altar to a water-deity.[v]
In ancient Persia, animals were sacrificed to Anahid; “100 horses, 1,000 cows, 10,000 sheep” is repeatedly attested in the Zoroastrian hymn to this deity. Anahita predates Zoroastrianism, but at the latest with the rise of Artaxerxes II, she became the second most important deity for the Zoroastrian worshipping royal family, following second only Ahura Mazda. She was considered either the wife or mother of Mithra.
The Zoroastrians…never kill an animal within the actual sanctuary; but in their ritual the living animals, its horns bedecked, is led or carried to the sound of music seven times widdershins around the sacred rock, while herbs and sweetmeats are strewn before it. It is very probable that these rites are pre-Zoroastrian in origin, since the prophet was concerned with the sacrifice of an upright heart rather than with tangible offerings. There is no clear evidence to show that he sought to end such sacrifices, but it is wholly unlikely that he instituted them.[vi]
Until the late 1800s cows were sacrificed at Pir-e Banu, setting it apart in worship from the sheep sacrifice at Pir-e Sabz. Pir-e Banu’s high holy days are in July.
Both of these Iranian Zoroastrian sites remain active places of official worship. Zoroastrian fire temples survive in Iran as well as in India and many other places across the globe. Indian Zoroastrians have an important role to play in the transmission of the religion and traditions as they spring from those who left Iran after the Safavids came to power. Today they are the sponsors of many of the Iranian and Azerbaijani fire temples, including the one at Pir-e Sabz. Local authorities, however, are responsible for the Islamic shrines.
(To be continued)
[i] Boyce, 30
[ii] Heritage Institute
[iii] World Heritage Encyclopedia
[iv] Boyce
[v] Boyce 38-39
[vi] Boyce 43