Ateshgah of Baku: The Fire Temple Built by Indian Traders, with Sanskrit and Punjabi Inscriptions

The short answer

What it is: Ateshgah is a 17th to 18th-century fire temple in Surakhani, on the edge of Baku. Indian merchants and pilgrims worshipped the sacred flame here as Jwala Ji.
The Indian link: most of its inscriptions are in Sanskrit (Devanagari) and Punjabi (Gurmukhi). One above a cell door opens with an invocation to Lord Ganesha and is dated Samvat 1802, which is 1745 to 1746 CE.
Visiting: it is about 30 km from central Baku. A 2026 guide puts foreign entry at around 15 AZN, or about 20 AZN combined with Yanar Dag. Confirm before you go.

Most Indian travellers reach Baku expecting flame towers, a seafront boulevard and a medieval old city. Few expect to find "Shri Ganeshaya Namah" carved in stone above a doorway, thousands of kilometres from home. Yet that is exactly what waits at Ateshgah, a small pentagonal temple where Hindu and Sikh traders from Punjab once kept a fire burning for Jwala Ji.

This guide explains who built the temple, what the inscriptions actually say, how it connects to the Jwalamukhi temple in Himachal Pradesh, and what you need to know to visit. If you are planning a trip, you can see it on most of our Baku tours.

Ateshgah fire temple at a glance

Why is there an Indian temple in Azerbaijan?

The answer is trade. From the 17th century, merchants from Multan and other parts of Punjab ran a busy network along the Caspian Sea, trading through Baku and on to Astrakhan in Russia. Many settled in Baku for years at a time. A 1747 Russian census of the Indian community in Astrakhan found most had come from Multan.

Those traders found something familiar in Surakhani. Natural gas seeped up through the rock and burned without stopping. For Hindus, a flame that rises from the earth on its own is a form of the goddess, and the best-known example in India is the Jwalamukhi temple in Kangra. In Baku, the merchants built cells for pilgrims and ascetics around the burning vents, and the temple became a stop for sadhus walking all the way from India.

The Kangra connection

Devotees reportedly called the Kangra shrine the "smaller Jwala Ji" and Baku the "greater Jwala Ji". In 1883, the British officer Colonel C. E. Stewart met a priest at Baku who said he had earlier served at Jwala Mukhi in Punjab, according to a 2025 paper by the Vivekananda International Foundation.

What the Sanskrit and Punjabi inscriptions say

The inscriptions are carved on stone plaques above the doorways of the cells. Sources count between 17 and 21. One widely cited count is 17: 14 Hindu, 2 Sikh, and 1 Persian. A 2026 Azerbaijani heritage page lists 21, mainly in Devanagari, with some Gurmukhi and Persian.

Hindu, Sikh or Zoroastrian? What the evidence says

The name Ateshgah comes from Persian and means "home of fire", so many visitors assume it is a Zoroastrian fire temple. The evidence for the building you see today points more strongly to Hindu and Sikh use.

•       The trident: a trishula sits on top of the central altar. It is a Shaiva symbol and is not associated with Zoroastrian practice.

•       The cells: the rooms around the courtyard suit Hindu ascetics and pilgrims, and the complex has a cremation area. Zoroastrians traditionally do not cremate their dead.

•       The scholars: the Parsi scholar Jivanji Jamshedji Modi, who studied the site, concluded in 1925 that the building was a Hindu temple rather than a Zoroastrian fire temple.

•       The other side: the Persian inscription and 19th-century reports of a Parsi priest sent from Bombay show Zoroastrians did worship here. Some historians also believe an older Zoroastrian shrine stood on the site long before the present building.

The fair reading is that the present temple was built by and for Indian worshippers, on ground that may have been sacred to Zoroastrians much earlier, and that all three communities used it at different times.

Ateshgah through travellers eyes: a timeline

Why did the pilgrims stop coming?

Two things changed. First, the Indian trading community on the Caspian shrank in the 19th century, and with it the steady flow of pilgrims and donations. Second, Baku became one of the world's great oil centres, and large-scale extraction weakened the natural gas seeps. By around 1880 the temple had no resident priest, and in 1969 the natural flame went out altogether.

Common myths about Ateshgah

Myth vs fact

"It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site." Not quite. It has been on UNESCO's tentative list since 1998, which is a step before full listing.

"The fire has burned naturally for centuries." It did, until 1969. The flame you see now is fed by piped gas.

"It is purely a Zoroastrian temple." Zoroastrians visited, but the building, symbols, and most inscriptions are Hindu and Sikh.

"Guru Nanak visited in 1520." Some Sikh writers make this claim, but no documentary evidence has been published. The Sikh inscriptions here date from the 18th century.

What to see inside the temple

•       The central altar (chahartagh): a small domed shrine in the middle of the courtyard, with the flame burning beneath and the trident on top.

•       The cells: 24 rooms around the pentagonal courtyard where pilgrims and ascetics lived. Look above each doorway for the inscriptions.

•       The balakhana: the guest room above the entrance gate, used by visiting traders.

•       The old gas lines and fire pits: traces of how the flame was once fed straight from the ground.

Take a photo of the Ganesha inscription and the trident together. For many Indian visitors, it is the moment the history becomes real.

Visiting Ateshgah: practical guide for Indian travellers

Book tickets through iTicket.az, the official ticketing platform. Indian passport holders need an e-visa for Azerbaijan, which you apply for on the official e-visa portal.

Pair it with Yanar Dag

Both sites are on the Absheron Peninsula. Visit Ateshgah in the afternoon, then head to Yanar Dag, the hillside where natural gas still burns, for sunset. Read our Yanar Dag guide for details. If you prefer to drive yourself, our self-drive guide to Baku covers rentals and rules.

How to fit Ateshgah into a Baku trip

•       Use our list of things to do in Baku and 5 sights in Baku to plan the rest of your days.

•       Travelling with children or parents? Our Azerbaijan family tour 2026 guide covers pace and food.

•       Going beyond Baku? The Silk Route town of Sheki has its own caravanserais, once used by traders like those who built Ateshgah.

•       Vegetarian? Read our Azerbaijan food guide before you go.

•       See more Azerbaijan tourist attractions or browse our Azerbaijan tour packages.

See Ateshgah on your Baku trip

Our Baku itineraries include the Absheron Peninsula, so you can stand under the same doorways the Multani traders built 300 years ago. Start with the Baku 4 nights Land of Fire package or browse all Baku tours.