Ancient Rituals

Peoples of Central Asia have used fire in their rituals. From its shamanic origins to Vedic tradition and Buddhist Tantra, fire has been used to offer, to make sacrifice, to please the Gods, to invoke unseen forces and to identify and unite with beneficial deities. The fire rituals of Vahagn (armenian fire god) & Atar (fire, son of Ahura mazda) can have hints to my discussion but they are mostly d
edicated to temples so I`ll skip those.

"Safar". The second month of the hijri calender. It is said that it is in this month when the demons & evil spirit lurks the lands & spreads bad omen. The Prophet got severely ill in this month. Deep within the Afghan lands the natives (Pashtuns) used to perform a ritual at the start of this month to ward off evil spirits, jinns n demons. It is said that the people would set fire in the evening on the eve of the new moon to lit up the dark night so the demons or jinns be scared or witness the fire as the sign of presence of believers. The higher & stronger the flames in the mountains, hills or plains the more will jinns stay away from these lands.

Now I just wanted to clear somethings for myself & to share the piece of knowledge. There is no such pagan/islamic arab ritual with such scenario or imagination, so the ritual must have some other background. Keeping the geographical location & ancient religions & people in mind I have to share 2 of the possible nearest pagan ritual closest to this strange & extinct ritual among us pashtuns.

There would be many fire rituals, un-noticed or not so close to the Afghan one so I`ll only write the 2 I found more close to the upper mentioned one.

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The first one would be a Jewish Ritual:-

                             The Fire of Rosh Chodesh. In ancient times, two witnesses had to confirm the appearance of the new moon. The exact day of this appearance was crucial because the new moon would determine when the month began and when that year's festivals would fall. The Mishnah reports that two witnesses would report that they had sighted the new moon to a court of judges in Jerusalem. These judges would examine the witnesses carefully to make sure their testimonies were identical, and then confirm that the new moon had indeed appeared. In order to quickly transmit this knowledge to the far-flung Jewish community, bonfires were lit on hilltops around Jerusalem. Each community that saw the fires burning would light its own bonfire. Thus the news would pass from mountain to mountain and town to town, until all the Jews knew it was Rosh Chodesh, the new moon. The other ritual is Havdalah where the people used to light a torch as part of the complete ritual. A bright torch or fire is required which symbolizes the distinction between the upper and lower worlds. The illumination of the upper world is a world of light. Shabbat, which is a gateway to the spiritual world, is also a world of light. But this ritual does not match the Pashtun way so I`ll skip that one & would continue to write on the other possible root of it.

The second would be an Euro-asian steppe ritual, most prominently an Aryan Ritual:- 

                           The Aryan rituals mainly consists of prayers to the various nature spirits. They also conducted fire-rituals to cleanse the atmosphere of all impurities and pollutants. In the fire ritual they would recite Vedic Mantras and invoke the various spirits. The reason they used fire was because fire/light is believed to be the messenger between this phenomenal world and the celestial world and fire invokes other celestial energies. So one day Bhrigu cursed Agni. A woman named Puloma was betrothed to a demon, and Bhrigu seeing she was beautiful fell in love with her and, after marrying her according to Vedic rites, secretly abducted her. But thanks to Agni's information the demon discovered the place where the young woman promised to him was hidden, and brought her back to his dwelling. Furious with Agni for helping the demon, Bhrigu cursed him saying: "Henceforth thou shalt eat of all things." Agni demanded of Bhrigu the reason for his curse since he had only told the demon the truth. He pointed out that if a man is questioned and tells a lie he is cast to hell, along with seven generations of his ancestors and seven generations of his children. Moreover, the man who fails to give information is equally guilty. And Agni went on to say: "I too can hurl curses but I respect the Brahmans and I control my anger. In truth I am the mouth of the gods and of the ancestors. When clarified butter is offered them, they receive it thanks to me, in their mouth, so how can you tell me to eat all things?" Hearing these words, Bhrigu agreed to change his curse and said: "As the sun purifies all Nature with his light and heat, so Agni shall purify everything which enters his flames." Since then the Agni (fire) is used to repel evil spirits, lies & bad omen & as an aryan cult, the agni before the nights of the dwelling demons will make sure that any demon shall not enter the domain protected by agni or be purified if any of them enters.