Udvada
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Udvada
Sandcastles and Fire Temples
By Teenaz Javat | DAWN
ParsiKhabar fire temple Heritage By arzan sam wadia / October 9, 2012
Udvada is a coastal town in Gujarat, about 240 km north of Mumbai. It is a small town but for Zoroastrians (Parsis) it is as venerable as the Kaaba in Makkah and Vatican in Rome for Muslims and Catholics respectively, as it is the site of Iran Shah, an Atash Behram (fire temple), where the holiest of the holy fire burns.
Udvada is a temple town on the shores of the Arabian Sea. Its village square is called Zanda Chowk. Parsis go there for vacations. A weekly visit to the Iran Shah would cap theirr holidays, with a tonga-ride to a nearby village thrown in for good measure.
Historical background
The Iran Shah, Udvada’s Atash Behram, is a pilgrimage site for Zoroastrians from all over the world. Atash Behram is the name given to both the highest grade of fire used in Zoroastrian worship as well as the temple that houses the fire.
The Zoroastrians flee the Arab invasion of Persia
On fleeing the Arab invasion of Persia (Iran), a group of Zoroastrians got into a boat along with their holy fire and set sail east from the Strait of Hormuz.
According to the book The Kissah-i-Sanjan by Dr Jivanji Modi, the Zoroastrians from Hormuz joined the Persians at Makran, Balochistan’s coastal region that spans south-eastern Iran and southern Pakistan. Makran already had a Zoroastrian community and as the Arabs advanced east so did the Zoroastrians who continued to sail eastward and anchored on the shores of Sanjan, a hamlet on India’s west coast in 715 AD (approximately).
Hindu King of Sanjan offers shelter
The benign Hindu King of Sanjan [King Jadav Rana] offered shelter to the group — who were referred to as Parsis (the people from Persia) — on certain conditions, and thus began the epic legacy of Parsis making their home in a then undivided India.
They soon started building a temple to house the holy fire. The first temple to house the fire was built in Sanjan, after which, as the Parsis moved up and down the coast, the fire too moved with them and made the journey to Navsari (a town north of Udvada). In 1742 AD it was decided to build a permanent home for the holy fire and it was bought to the Atash Behram building at Udvada making it the oldest functioning Atash Behram in the world.
Iran Shah
Why call the holy fire Iran Shah?
According to the book Religion and History of the Parsees by Meherbano Kekobad Marker, the Atash Behram at Udvada is referred to as Iran Shah as in the Sassanian times all Atash Behrams were referred to as Iran Shah, implying thereby the spiritual role of the Holy Fire in the governance of the country.
The Iran Shah is well served by priests from nine families who have sacred rights to serve and tend the holy fire. They are descendants from the leading priests who were associated with the holy fire as it landed on the shores of Sanjan to Navsari and now Udvada.
They tend to the higher liturgies that go with the holy fire in rotation and with much reverence. Although they all do not live in Udvada, they come ever so often to exercise their holy duty.
Udvada residents oppose heritage notification
By Hardik Shah | TNN
The Times of India 2011-03-27
Residents of Udvada, a holy place for Parsis, met in March 2011 to oppose a government notification which they say virtually seeks to freeze any development in the town to protect its heritage value.
"We honour the sacred fire temple and the ancient Parsi houses at Mirza street but why should the other 14 to17 local falias (streets) suffer because the government wants to label it a heritage precinct?” asked Raju Patel, sarpanch, Udvada gram panchayat.
According to the notification, Udvada is world famous as the holiest place for Parsis and has been declared as a notified area by the urban development department of Gujarat. A four-member committee has been told to prepare a proposed development plan for the existing Udvada gram panchayat within the next six months. District authorities have been instructed by higher ups to stop clearance of any non-agricultural activities at Udvada village, sources from the collector’s office said.
The villagers want the notification to be restricted to a limited area around the fire temple.
Harish Mangela from the fishermen community of Udvada village said it was unfair that they would not be able to expand their own houses to accommodate the growing family.
Udvada’sUtsav 2015
The Times of India Dec 20 2015
Why the world's Parsis are heading to this Guj town
BachiKarkaria
Keeper of the sacred flame since 1742, Udvada will host the country's first ever Parsi festival Udvada is a nondescript hamlet in Gujarat of 5,897 people. Next weekend it is expected to host 5,000 Parsi and IraniZoroastrians from India and abroad. That's onesixth of the entire population of this minuscule community, world-wide. The remarkable demographic will be triggered by the first-ever UdvadaUtsav, December 25 to 27.
For all its secular nonentity, despite the decrepit silence of its once-babbling, squabbling Parsimohallas, Udvada is the holiest place of Zoroastrian pilgrimage.Since 1742, it has been the `throne' of the `Iranshah', the sacred fire. It is believed to have burned continuously ever since it was consecrated between the 8th and 9th centuries on Gujarat's Sanjan beach, where the storm-tossed Persian Zoroastrians had landed, hoping to save their 3,000-year-old faith from the invading Arabs. Their leader-priest, NairyosangDhaval, had lit it from the 16 embers needed, including those from a household hearth, a funeral pyre, a smithy's coals and finally the `cosmic' spark from a bolt of lightning. The refugees declared it their new king, `Iranshah'.
The idea of the new, pride-enhancing UdvadaUtsav wasn't ignited by the religious or secular leaders of the now di vided, dying Parsi community, but from that master of the main chance, Narendra Modi. Way back in 2006, at Ahmedabad's Cama Hotel, the then chief minister had told its Parsi owner that he'd like to showcase the exemplary community whose Indian roots were in Gujarat. A Visitors Centre was built. Vada DasturjiKhurshedDastoor, who along with Dr Peshotan Mirza, is one of the two hereditary high priests of the UdvadaAtashBehram, says, “When Mr Modi visited Udvada in 2011, he suggested an event to highlight `Parsi-panu', our culture.“ UdvadaUtsav became a reality with Cyrus Poonawalla's sponsorship.
ArunJaitley is taking Narendra Modi's place as chief guest next Sunday .Vada DasturjiDastoor, spearheading the Utsav, insists that its theme of tolerance wasn't prompted by recent events. “It had come up during the 2011 visit, with Mr Modi saying that Gujarat had taken a completely alien Persian civilization into its embrace, and Udvada, home to the Parsis' holiest fire, should be celebrated as a place of peace, harmony and tolerance.“
Faith and nine priestly clans have kept alive the Iranshah's 1,300-year-old flame in its chequered sojourn. These anointed families are descendants of the three Sanjan priests who protected it in its early, vulnerable years. They guarded the Iranshah during the Muslim invasions of Gujarat. When Sanjan fell to Sultan Mahmud in 1297, they kept it hidden -and alive -in the remote hill caves of Barot for 12 long years. After 14 years in tiny Vansda, it was enthroned for three centuries in Navsari, a thriving Parsi commercial centre, briefly spirited away to Surat to protect it from nomadic robbers. Skirmishes with local Navsari priests, prompted the nine Sanjan families to run away with it to Udvada.
Will faith -Udvada's lonely claim to fame -hold its own amidst the Utsav's feasting and the razzle-dazzle of ShiamakDavar, Latino Salsa, Karaoke and DJ nights? One hopes that the crowds will also throng theIranshahAtashBehram's marble lobby aglow with hanging oil `divas' and stern portraits of past Parsi greats. That they will experienceThe spiritual implosion triggered by the gongs of the burnished bell as the near-celestial priest in his long white muslin robes performs the `boe' ritual in the inner sanctum. It will be a true Utsav if the revered flames manage to leap across centuries, continents and controversies, to bind this beleaguered community to that ancient Sanjan beachhead, and to itself.
