Text taken from La Lettre du Collège de France n° 34, Paris, Collège de France, p. 26, ISSN 1628-2329
Fire played a fundamental role in the Avestic ritual tradition, and its centrality in ancient liturgy is indisputable.
However, the role of fire in Old-Avestic sources needs to be clarified through comparative analysis. Above all, it's important to highlight a series of startling evidences that are never emphasized as they should be:
1) The Γāθāσ have only eight attestations of the name "fire"(ātar-, m.), to which we add the four attestations in ch. 36 of the Yasna Ηαπταŋηāιτι (= YH). Proportionally, the YH (Y 36.1-3) dedicated greater importance to fire than the five Γāθāσ combined.
2) Fire is never called "son of Ahura Μαζδā", an exclusively recent designation. However, it is true that it is several times called "ton" with reference to Ahura Μαζδā, a determination that could be seen as an allusion to Μαζδā's paternity.
3) The name fire is attested only in the singular.
Certain other characteristics of fire deserve closer attention. Y 34.4 attests an ambivalent reference to fire, in its dual quality of being "of remarkable favor" to the helpful, but "of visible malevolence" to the hostile. The mention of fire's violent, burning character is important, since Ahura Μαζδā himself, can be "evil" against anyone who opposes his will. In addition, fire is qualified by θβa-"ton" five times, i.e. it belongs to Ahura Μαζδā, and in Y 34.4 we find tōiātrə̄m. This belonging is indisputably found in Y 31.3, but also in YH where the fire is "of Ahura Μαζδā". This relationship demonstrates that the ritual fire is of Ahura Μαζδā. I don't believe that a distinction can be made between divine and material fire. Through ritual, the world of Ahura Μαζδā and his college of assistants is materialized in the liturgy. Moreover, in recent liturgy, the college of seven assistants, with the zaotar-, corresponded functionally to that of Ahura Μαζδā with his Αμəṣ̌ασ Σπəṇτασ.
Analysis of the attestations of fire has highlighted an important point: the consecration of fire. Narten had interpreted the beginning of Y 36.3 as the official formula for the consecration of fire. This is a plausible solution, but we must agree on the meaning we attribute to this consecration. In the Yasna that has come down to us, the fire had already been consecrated, or was already ready to be used during the sacrifice. Two points lead me to believe this: firstly, the Yasna ritual, in its solemn form, was uninterrupted, and secondly, the fire was never lit immediately before the ritual, but was and remained permanently lit, inexhaustible and inexhaustible. Unfortunately, a description of the ancient ritual practiced prior to the arrangement of the Γāθāσ and the YH in the center of the Yasna cannot be definitively established. If we assume that Y 34 announced a very important sacrificial act and that Y 36 confirmed the efficacy of the immolation that had already been performed, this sequence demonstrates that the fire had already been consecrated by the time Y 34 was recited. Indeed, an immolation cannot be performed in the presence of an unconsecrated fire. Kellens has shown that Y 58 probably marks the end of the cremation of the offering, placed in the fire at Y 36. This reconstruction does not prevent us from considering that the burning of the meat offering is necessarily opposed to a kind of internalization of the sacrifice. Cooking sacrificial meat is not only a material act, but also a sacred action, performed by fire in a speculative context. However, one thing is certain: the Γāθāσ and the YH were placed in a position of centrality, deprived of ritual actions with the exception of the burning of the offering. More thought will have to be given to this subject.
