Concerning the Purpose of the Ka'ba-I Zardust There Have Been Three Suppositions: It Was a Fire Temple, a Treasure House Or a Grave

THE KA'BA-I ZARDUST

EIICHI IMOTO The Osaka University of Foreign Studies

Concerning the purpose of the Ka'ba-i Zardust there have been three suppositions: it was a fire temple, a treasure house or a grave. The Ka'ba is a closed building with blind windows. Therefore it is very difficult to keep even embers or live charcoal, to say nothing of burning fire in it: it had no ventilation at all when the door was closed. There was a completely dark room in it. In such a place could one keep a treasure such as chrysographed Avestan manuscripts written on cowhides? Expecially in the atmosphere where the temperature rises above 40 degrees during summer, the temperature in the room may rise much higher and the cowhides will be so parched to be kept for a sacred purpose. Furthermore, from a geographical point of view, the Ka'ba- i Zardust seems to have had the weakness of defense even if it were on the place of the pilgrimage as will be mentioned later. The Ka'ba is located in front of the Achaemenian tombs. One may well think that it was also a kind of tomb. But whose? There are no Achaemenian symbols on its walls, but the same building is found on the site of Pasargadae where, in addition to it, the tomb of Cyrus the Great and some altars have remained. The palace of Pasargadae belonged to Cyrus only. Then whose tomb was it if it be a kind of tomb? One can not think of anybody other than his ancester, Achaemenes. Then, the Ka'ba-i Zardust was also the tomb, rather the shrine, of Achaemenes. Each of two branches of the Achaemenian dynasty seems to have constructed its own shrine. The third supposition is most likely to be accepted if we regard the Ka'ba-i Zardust as a shrine of the founder of the dynasty. Plutarch (Vita Art.) tells us that Artaxerxes II went to Pasargadae for the ceremony of accession. The initiation took place in the shrine of Athena, where he took off his coat and put on the mantle which Cyrus the Great had worn till he became king. Artaxerxes acceded the throne taking some kind of food and narcotic drinking to be swooned until he became reborn as a new

65 king and changing his old clothes with new ones as Egyptian Pharaohs would do. Pasargadae seems to be Naqs-i Rustam of the present day, which is located in front of the tomb of Darius the Great. Pasargadae was the Old Persian equivalent to Greek Persepolis. Artaxerxes went to the Ka'ba-i Zardust because the Ka'ba of the palace of Cyrus the Great had already been obsoleted. Or, it may be assumed that he visited both of them to perform the rite of death and rebirth: the Ka'ba-i Zardust at Naqs-i Rustam was represented as a symbol of rebirth, and the Ka'ba of Pasargadae as a symbol of death. The Ka'ba-i Zardust and the Ka'ba of Mecca are the same things. The former was built during the early Achaemenian period while the latter was in Mecca when Muhammad's clan, the Qurais, was keeper of the key and the black cloth of the Ka'ba. There is, however, an interval of more than a thou- sand years between both the Ka'bas. It does not seem that the Arabs imitated the Achaemenian Ka'ba, though it remained almost intact during the Sas- sanian period and thereafter, and came into their sight. Both the Ka'bas were derived from one and the same culture, while the Ka'ba of Mecca has been alive in Islam and kept its old features almost for 1300 years. Both the Ka'bas have their common features. They are closed cubic stone houses with three-storeyed blind windows. It is dark inside both of them. The floors are situated several meters high above the ground and one must go onto them by way of staircases. Under the floors the blocks of stones are heap- ed up from the ground so that one may suppose as if the rocks project from the earth. On the floor of the inside room of the Meccan Ka'ba there is a well without water, rather a depression. In Muhammad's time there was a figure of the god Hubal in it which he destroyed when he returned from Medina as a victor. There are, however, no reports as to whether or not there was a hole on the floor of the Ka'ba-i Zardust. Around the walls of the Ka'ba of Mecca there hangs a black cloth, which is to be changed every year, and on the middle of which there surrounds a golden strip on which one can read: Verily, the first House founded for men was surely that at Bekkah (another name of Mecca), for a blessing and a guidance to the worlds. (E. H. Palmer, The Koran, III, 90). It was considered as a place through which man is guided from the other world and guided into the other world. It was the house situated on the boundary between the two worlds. In this house the mankind was born. There are inscriptions at the base of

66 ORIENT THE KA'BA-I ZARDUST a wall of the Ka'ba-i Zardust in which the priest Karter called the Ka'ba bun khanak. The meaning of the bun khanak is the "origin-house" equivalent to the "first house" of the Ka'ba of Mecca, not the "Statte der Aufbewahrung der Awesta-Urschrift." The priority in naming was with Iranians. It does not seem that the Arabs borrowed and used its name to indicate the original function of their Ka'ba. The name was derived from the Ur-Ka'ba which must have existed in pre-Achaemenian times. On the walls of the Ka'ba of Mecca there are several black stones. Pil- grims who visit the Ka'ba must, besides the tawaf, kiss one of the stones. But for those who can not come near it, it is enough only to point it from distance. The black stone seems to symbolize the black head of a child coming into the world out of his mother's womb. Around the stone one may notice the labia of the genitalia. One of the most fundamental functions of the Ka'ba was the procreation. Upon one of the six pillars in the Ka'ba which is found nearest the gate was there the sculptured figure of the virgin Mary and the infant Jesus. (al- Azragi, quoted by Burckhardt, Dictionary of Islam by T. P. Hughes, 1885, s. v. KA'BAH). It is interesting that the pillar of the Ka'ba was called the navel of the heaven, naf-i asman in Persian. Of course, it was called so in the Arabic equivalent. On the navel of the heaven the figure was sculptured. Artaxerxes, as mentioned above, went to the temple of Athena in Pasar- gadae. Athena was enshrined in the temple. Anahita, the Iranian Athena, was considered as the goddess of the procreation. In the reign of Artaxerxes II, Anahita and Mithra were worshiped together with Auramazda. Anahita and Mithra were surely Iranian counterparts of Venus and Adonis, and Auramazda was the sky god. Perhaps in the Ka'ba-i Zardust there were also pillars called navels of heavens. Mithra, the son of the god, appeared on the earth with his mother Anahita down the pillar as the incarnation of the founder of the dynasty. Here took place the ceremony of the accession, and the Achae- menian king was reborn just like the Egyptian Pharaoh as the embodiment of Osiris. The pilgrimage to Mecca takes place on the last month of the lunar year. Pilgrims change their clothes and become ceremoniously unclean at Mina where victims are slaughtered. People go through the flood of blood and the heaps of heads of victims, and then come back to the Ka'ba. People believed to be reborn for the rest of their lives as a newly-born child come into the world

Vol. XV 1979 67 through the flood of blood and impurities. It seems that the Ka'ba had been a place of the rites de passage a long time before Muhammad. So the Ka'ba-i Zardust was. The meaning of the bun khanak was such. The protrusion of the Ka'ba which makes the floor high above the ground is suggestive of the Greek omphalos. Omphaloi are of different shapes. They are oval, conic, pyramidal etc. They are sometimes a pair of stones and sometimes a single one. In the shrine of Apollo of Delphi the maiden of Apollo sat on the tripod chair on the omphalos, the navel of the earth, and delivered the oracle of Apollo. The stone was the boundary between the two worlds. It was also the one between life and death. It was the origin of the generation: one might go into the other world through this point to be reborn as a being of the next world, and come into this world as a human child. Therefore, stones were sometimes representations of fecundity and virility as human figures of bisexuality. They were also represented partly as a stone pillar with a well, partly as a rock with a depression on top of it. Adam's Peak in Ceylon is worshiped by Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Shaivites and Jews as well. On the peak there is a depression. Buddhists call it the footprint of Buddha, Christians regard it as the footprint of St. Thomas, Muslims think it to be the footprint of Adam, Shaivites as the footprint of Shiva. They make their own pilgrimage, thinking that the peak is the origin of the universe. The rock with a large depression is enshrined in the house on the peak. A huge cone with a depression on top of it is suggestive of the volcano with a crater or the Egyptian mastaba with a flat ground on top of it. Adam's Peak was the place of the pilgrimage as well as that of the procreation. There were a lot of sacred prostitutes to enact the mythology of the rebirth. Skt, lanka- meant this kind of woman with a twig in her hand or the depression on top of the peak which was thought to be the navel of the world. (cf. M. Mayrhofer, Kurzgefasstes EtymologischesWorterbuch des Altindischen, III, 1976, pp. 85-6). Around Naqs-i Rustam there is a block of the rock which protrudes about two meters high above the ground and from the top of which one can survey Marvdast. The rock is called Sang-e ab, the rock of water, because on top of it there is an artificial rectangular basin with a drain. It is an archetype of the Ka'ba-i Zardust. It is not clear that it belonged to the Achaemenian period or the Elamite. Anyway, Naqs-i Rustam was a place of the pilgrimage down to the early Islamic period. The Achaemenian tombs were constructed there

68 ORIENT THE KA'BA-I ZARDUST in order to get the Achaemenian kings touched with uncleanness to be consecrat- ed and reborn. The Ka'ba was the point of contact between heavens and the earth. It had two navels, i. e. the navel of the heaven and the navel of the earth. The Bareshnumgah of the Parsees is consisted of 3 rows of 3 stones or 3 rows of 3 hollows as prescribed in the Vendidad of the Avesta. The third row of the stones or hollows is a little detached. On this place of purification one prepares the gaomez, the cow's urine, and pure water. On the third row (gah) only the pure water is used. (J. J. Modi, The ReligiousCeremonies and Cus- toms of the Parsees, 1937, p. 97 ff.). On the first two gahs one makes uncleanness by way of the gaomez and then, on the third gah one becomes purified by way of the pure water. The inside of the tomb of Darius the Great is divided into three rooms, of which the westernmost room is a little detached. In each room three cists are hollowed out. These are oblong cists of almost the same size. One can not believe that the body of Darius lay in state in one of them and his attendants were put in the rest of them. The tomb was a place of purification. As on the Bareshnumgah the body became ceremoniously unclean in the first two rooms and then it became purified in the last, westernmost room. The Ka'ba has three rooms in appearance. It seems that the three rooms of the tomb of Darius and the three storeys of the Ka'ba have some relationship between them. In one of the rest of the tombs at Naqs-i Rustam there are three rooms, and each room has only two cists. In the tomb behind Persepolis each room has only one cist. The structure of the tomb of Darius the Great is nearest the Bareshnumgah. Where did they carry the bodies of the Achaemenian kings? Or they lay in state in the last room?

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