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Visions of Azerbaijan”.-2010.-September/October.-P.74-78. Indians in Azerbaijan: history and facts by Kamil Ibrahimov Relations between India and Azerbaijan extend back to ancient times; however they were particularly strong in the Middle Ages. Historically, the celebration of Baku as the city of “sacred fires” was a significant feature of Indian-Azerbaijani relations. It is known that Azerbaijan practised fire-worship and Christianity before the Arab invasion and there were many religious centres or shrines. One of the main centres of fire-worship was ancient Baku. It is widely known that in the early Middle Ages, Baku was already being mentioned as the location of eternal fires. The first such reference was made by a Byzantine author of the 5th century. This information surely refers to Baku’s eternal flames, to the sea shore and, it seems, to the fires at Surakhani and on Pirallahi Island. Writers in the Middle Ages and later mentioned the displays of combustible gas on the Absheron Peninsula – on Pirallahi Island, in Surakhani village, in Baku Bay and on Shubani Mountain. The strongest gas vents were in Surakhani village. Atesh-I Bagavan was mentioned by Gevond in the 8th century as Ateshi-Baguan, which means “fires of Bagavan”, “fires of the city of God” and which was located in the area around Baku. Absheron, bursting with oil and streams of combustible gas, was also included in the province of Paytakaran. The name Ateshi-Bagavan may have been connected with the sanctuaries and ancient temples of fire-worshippers, which existed in the Baku area or on Absheron in ancient times. Archaeological evidence. Trading relations clearly existed between Azerbaijan and India in ancient times, many centuries before Christ. Various findings of cowrie shells and other archaeological information testify to this. Cowries have been found in great quantities at burial sites in the settlements (Mingachevir) and cities of Azerbaijan and they are believed to originate in the Bronze Age (end of the second, beginning of the first millennium B.C.) The cowrie, as is known, is abundant in the Indian and Pacific oceans, and its use as coinage can be traced in India and neighbouring countries from the furthest past. In the process of barter trade, these shells served as common currency, through which barter was conducted. Cowries, widely used in Azerbaijan, appeared here from India by sea, via Iran. They served as amulets, talismans etc. Ancient writers claim that there was a water way from the borders of Iran to upstream of the Rioni River, through the Black Sea and the navigable rivers of Central Asia, through the Caspian Sea, to the Kur River and Caucasian Albania. English merchants bought cowries in India and, later, sold them in Guinea for twice or three times the price. There were very extensive trading operations in Central and Western Africa at that time, and they were transacted using cowrie shells. Let’s take a look at some of the archaeological information testifying to the cult of fire and the expansion of fire-worship in Azerbaijan. An arched monument discovered in Icheri Sheher (Baku’s Old City) in 1964, is the yard of a mosque, cleared in 1989, near Maiden Tower. The mosque is a monument from the tenth century. An octagonal and triple-stepped pedestal, made of stone, and an octagonal column were discovered by the archaeologist O.S.Ismizadeh in the yard of the ancient temple. This construction was not destroyed during the construction of the mosque, and has survived to our time. The repetition of octagonal motifs is of great interest. The column at the centre of the monument seems to have served as a torch-holder during religious ceremonies. The triple-stepped and octagonal pedestal, the octagonal column and other signs of antiquity prove once more that Baku was already inhabited in those ancient times. The fact that the city was inhabited by fire-worshippers is not in the slightest doubt. Three metallic bronze cast items were discovered within the grounds of the Shirvanshahs’ Palace in Baku during archaeological excavations; they were in layers of sand, 2.4 metres below the modern surface. One of them is a wide, shallow, open cup on a stand (height 8.8 cm) with its outer surface decorated with borders. The two other items are lamps: one 12.9 cm high, the other 10.7 cm. These items have an ancient appearance. “The position in which they were discovered (laid next to each other in a layer of clear sand) indicates that they had probably been hidden”. Their shapes are similar to those in a picture on a signet ring from Mingachevir and refer to a pre-Islamic period; we may assume that they are connected to the cult of fire and fire-worship. The Arabs followed the Zoroastrians and people of other faiths, and impressed Islam upon those who resisted. As we know, fire-worship was prevalent in the second half of the first millennium in Absheron and Christianity was widespread in the early Middle Ages in Shirvan, Mughan, Lenkeran, the Talysh region, South Azerbaijan and in the north of Azerbaijan. In several regions the most ancient cults have been preserved – the cults of rock, wood, moon and sun worship etc. The Indian “Multana” caravanserai. In the 15th century, a colony of Indian merchants lived and had caravanserais in Baku, Shemakha, Tabriz and other Azerbaijani cities. The 15th century Indian Multana caravanserai still stands in the ancient fortress of Baku – Icheri Sheher. Trading by Indian merchants, who mainly bought raw silk produced in Shirvan, Shemakha and other places, continued in Azerbaijan until the 16th century and later. About 50 m north-west of the Baku temple, Maiden Tower, there is a caravanserai building – totally reconstructed in the 14th century on the foundations of a more ancient construction - which had obviously served the same purpose. This building still carries its ancient name – the “Multana” caravanserai, taking the name of an Indian tribe of fire-worshippers. It seems that the name was given to the caravanserai in the 15th century, inherited from its more ancient predecessor, built in times of rigorous Zoroastrianism - the Sassanid era, or even earlier; it is hard to imagine that any building could have been given a pagan name while Islam held sway. This caravanserai was restored again in the 17th century and the last major work carried out on it was a reconstruction from 1974-1976. Constructed right next to the high stone wall surrounding the temple, not far from the main gates, which were located a little further west, the Multana caravanserai served as a shelter for Zoroastrian pilgrims from far India. The Indian pilgrims often came to the ancient city of Ateshi-Baguan and stayed at their caravanserai to participate in worship and sacrificial offerings at the principal temple of the Mazdaites - and later the Zoroastrians - the Baku temple of seven-headed fires. The temples of Baku were clearly visited by followers of the Zoroastrian religion. Opposite the caravanserai for Indian fire-worshippers was the Bukhara caravanserai for merchants from Central Asia. The latter had been reconstructed in the 15th century on the site of an older building which had probably been a shelter for fire-worshippers from Sogda, Khorezm and Bactria. It would seem that these caravanserais enabled merchants from distant countries to combine business with worship of their God in the cult complex. While the flames continued to burn in the Baku, the temple complex of the ancient city of Ateshi-Baguan was probably the main cult centre of Mazdaism and Zoroastrianism, popular across Caspiana, Albania and Midia – Atropatena, Baku Juma – Cathedral Mosque. It is no coincidence that some people in Baku still believe that the Juma Mosque, located within Baku’s Old City walls, was built on the site of an ancient fire-worshippers’ temple. A traveller, who saw the Baku Juma Mosque in 1873, described four arches in the middle of the mosque; their tops did not overlap. Those arches were ancient shrines; they had been preserved from the ancient temple of fire-worshippers and reconstructed into a Muslim mosque. Thus, the temple was open on all four sides and topped by a cupola. In the middle there was a hole/well, where fire – combustible gas - burned continuously. A writer who visited the Juma Mosque in 1887 compared it to the fire temple in Surakhani. Ateshgah. One of the most interesting and peculiar historical monuments near Baku is the fire temple of Indian fire-worshippers, called Ateshgah. It is located on a flat area not far from the sea, to the south-east of the village of Surakhani on the Absheron Peninsula; it is currently surrounded by oil fields on all sides. The cells and the temple were constructed at different times between the 17th and 19th centuries. The cells were enclosed within a surrounding wall at the end of the 18th century. Ateshgah was constructed by Indians living in Baku, the majority of whom came from Northern India and were members of the Sikh community. All the buildings, reminiscent of a caravanserai, are designed as a closed pentagon and consist of 24 cells and rooms, which used to accommodate visiting pilgrims. The entrance is two-storeyed; on the second floor is a room with two windows and a door between them in the northern and southern walls and a door in the short eastern and western walls. This place for visiting guests was called the “balahane”. There is a stone staircase from the balahane into the internal yard. On the outer wall of this room there is some Indian writing.

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