When our distant ancestors first started using fire as a technology, they would have initially been using naturally occurring fire, probably from lightning strikes (unless the tribe lived near an active volcano).
The opportunity to harvest natural fire from lightning doesn't occur very often, so it was necessary to maintain an eternal fire. This was a very important job, passed down from one generation to the next, so of course it would become ritualized, and stories and myths about the importance of the job would be created. Myths and rituals are how you conserve and propagate culture in a pre-literate society. Actually, the first tribe to do this was probably before the invention of modern language, so who knows what this would have actually looked like. Are there myths in a pre-oral culture? There are other modalities of thought and communication other than modern oral language, so maybe!
We know from the archeological record that the rate of tech progress in stone tools was extremely, almost incomprehensibly slow during the earliest stone ages. Likewise, it's probable that many long generations passed from the creation of firekeeping rituals (the eternal fire) to the discovery of techniques for making fire on demand.
My guess is that the eternal fire has ancient roots, was strongly culturally conserved, and re-invented multiple times.
Vedic Hinduism had a similar concept of eternal fire. I recently wrote up a twitter thread [1] explaining how the modern interpretation of Vedic instructions on starting these sacred fires misunderstands the text.
Etymology tidbit: "Bhārata", India's Sanskrit name, refers to the forerunner clan that established India's first historically recorded political entity—the Kuru Kingdom—around 1200 BC near modern Delhi. The clan itself was named "Bhārata" due to their ardent bearing ("bhar-" in Sanskrit) of the sacred fire.
That was an amazing read. So, what is likely to happen now? Does your discovery become canon? If so, is it a slow process? There won't be a schism of some kind over this, will there?
Thanks! I have no idea—unfortunately, very few Hindus maintain the Vedic fire rites. There are also no active central authorities on matters of Vedic ritual. The only plan of now is to use this interpretation in my own yajña practice.
This is fascinating. I had no idea there could be different grades of fire.
Does anyone know the theological basis for the different numbers of purification rituals for each fire? For instance, why is the potter's fire purified 61 times?
What I would like to figure out is what building a pyramid would look like today, with modern tools, but with similar structure and materials. I.e. stone blocks about 1x2x1 meters in size. Presumably quarrying and transportation happens with machinery, placement could happen with cranes, etc. What kind of size could be achieved and at what cost?
>The sacred fire at Udvada Atash Behram, for example, kindled in 721 CE in Sanjan, burns continually to this day, now in Udvada since 1741, and housed in a magnificent Persian style temple building since 1742.
That it some impressive cultural feat. It combines the human ability to take on the extraordinarily long term view [0] - planning ahead - (our prefrontal cortex is only fully developed at 25 years of age) and the control of fire which goes back at least 1 million (!) years [1].
Some of the Proto-Indo-Europeans [2] seemed to be very keen at ritualizing the control of fire which can be attested through various examples in Indo-European practices [3].
If one traces back the Indo-European origin of the word fire there are 2 main terms:
(1) *h₁n̥gʷnis
(2) *péh₂wr̥
The first one refers to the animate feature of fire (e.g. as "Spirit"/"God", "active") while the second one to the inanimate ("substance", "passive") [4], interestingly Proto-Indo-European is thought to have animacy gender as a distinct grammatical feature [5] which was later replaced by the masculine/feminine gender.
The germanic root for fire comes from the inanimate one while the Persian atash, the latin ignis or Agni (Vedic deity of fire) from the animate form.
To me (as a non-believer) this is like a fascinating combination of the Ship of Theseus [1] and a little homeopathy [2], but with fire! Wow, very interesting, thanks for sharing.
The opportunity to harvest natural fire from lightning doesn't occur very often, so it was necessary to maintain an eternal fire. This was a very important job, passed down from one generation to the next, so of course it would become ritualized, and stories and myths about the importance of the job would be created. Myths and rituals are how you conserve and propagate culture in a pre-literate society. Actually, the first tribe to do this was probably before the invention of modern language, so who knows what this would have actually looked like. Are there myths in a pre-oral culture? There are other modalities of thought and communication other than modern oral language, so maybe!
We know from the archeological record that the rate of tech progress in stone tools was extremely, almost incomprehensibly slow during the earliest stone ages. Likewise, it's probable that many long generations passed from the creation of firekeeping rituals (the eternal fire) to the discovery of techniques for making fire on demand.
My guess is that the eternal fire has ancient roots, was strongly culturally conserved, and re-invented multiple times.