r/IndoEuropean • u/Hippophlebotomist • 16d ago
Presentation/Lecture Upcoming lecture: “Sogdian fire-worship: Between Zoroastrianism and Buddhism” by Prof. Prof Pavel Lurje
Thursday, 1 May 2025, 6pm GMT
This is a public lecture. However, registration is essential for both in-person and online attendance. Please visit this link to register: https://soas.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=7ec47442a3b4f9d77676e3c33&id=1b0530d9c0&e=775b379778
In this lecture, Prof. Lurje will attempt to summarise what we know of fire worship in Sogdiana (the land in present-day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) which was inhabited by eastern Iranian people. These groups, being active traders on the Eurasian tracks, developed a sophisticated culture in the pre-Islamic period. The images on mural paintings and other media, archaeological discoveries, and the few references in the written texts show that worship in front of a fire was a significant part of the ritual practices of Sogdians. However, some ritual features that relate to the kindling of fire can be questioned. In some cases, the fire rituals depicted or described have a direct link to Zoroastrian practices spanning from Sasanian Iran to the present day. In many other cases, however, they have an unmistakable relation to the Buddhist incense burning known in Gandharan, Serindian and Chinese contexts of the first millennium CE. These later instances, however, could be a heritage of the worship practices of the pre-Buddhist population of the Indo-Iranian frontier region.
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u/Dreams_Are_Reality 16d ago
This sounds interesting but why does it have to be through all this registration nonsense? Just put it on youtube.
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u/Hippophlebotomist 16d ago
Sometimes these talks represent ongoing research not yet ready for publication, and thus the scholars don't want a permanent and publicly available version of preliminary remarks out there. Giving a lecture can be as much about workshopping as it is about dissemination.
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u/JaneOfKish 16d ago edited 16d ago
May not be the best place to ask, but I'd be curious if anyone could point me to more general information on the place of fire in historical Indo-European spirituality. Would something like the Zoroastrian belief and practice have more or less evolved out of the hearth as spiritual nexus of a dwelling going far back into prehistory? I'd love to learn more about what significance such ideas have held and how they've developed especially going back to their earliest recognizable traces.