خلاصة:
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.
ملخص الجهاز:
Therefore, an effort will be made, based on available documents and sources, to examine the political, social, and economic status of these sacred places within the framework of the political, social, and economic power of the Sasanian kings, and to depict and explain the characteristics governing each of the functions of fire temples, with regard to the connection between religion and government in Sasanian society.
803-802) Ardashir and Fire Temples: Regarding the Sasanian kings, including Ardashir Papakan, we know that the new rulers employed several factors in their imperial propaganda; in other words, they promoted their imperial ideology through the following methods: 1- Reliefs and inscriptions through which they connected with Ahura Mazda and other deities, as well as with the people; 2- Silver vessels which, in fact, described the actions and special qualities of the king; 3- Coins containing religious symbols such as fire altars and deities; 4- Writing letters to local kings such as Gushnasp Shah of Tabaristan; 5- Building royal fire temples throughout the empire.
87 In fact, despite the actions of Ardashir, which were carried out according to necessities and conditions, the first Sasanian kings used the lighting of fire and the construction of fire temples for political purposes, but other religions also continued to live in the lands of the empire - albeit with their own difficulties.
While in Pahlavi texts, where their religious viewpoint takes precedence over their social and economic viewpoints, we never learn about the king's entry into fire temples or his and the nobility's actions in donating property and assets to these places, and many other currents that are mentioned in Islamic sources.
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