Political, Social and Economic Functions of Fire-temples during the Sassanid Era

The Sassanid rulers’ endeavor to establish an empire led to a substantial change in the previous ruling system and to the foundation of a new order. The founders of the empire enjoyed the legacy of Parthian and other preceding rules. They were fully acquainted with the concept of Shāhanshāhi (‘king of kings’) which aroused in Parthian and other preceding rules on the one hand, and with Zoroastrian religious thoughts inherited from the remaining dynasties in Pars after Achaemenids on the other. The principal task of the new rulers was to combine these two categories and the Zoroastrian religion facilitated it, since it reckoned kingdom and religion to accompany each other and that kingdom was considered desirable if it protected the religion. Zoroastrian religion provided the necessary facilities for establishment and continuity of the empire to pay for this protection. One of such facilities was the fire-temples and their commissionaires. Sassanid kings took advantage of these facilities in many ways for their political benefits; the impression of fireplace on the coins, construction of numerous fire-temples and the establishment and consecration of the Atash Bahram (‘Fire of Victory’) in those temples as well as destruction of pagodas, churches and Div-khānahs (‘demon houses’) and rebuilding them as fire-temples were accomplished among such measures. Therefore, the lives of some kings, priests, aristocrats and people at Sassanid era were devoted to sacred fire and fire-temples. The principal subject of this paper is investigating the political, social and economic functions of fire temples during Sassanid era.