Zoroastrian symbols
The Faravahar, the sacred fire and the sudreh and kusti: the symbols of Zoroastrians in Iran, India and the diaspora, and what their scholars and priests say they mean.
- FaravaharThe winged figure of a man rising from a ring, the best known symbol of Zoroastrianism. Zoroastrians today read it as a fravashi, a guardian spirit, and teach its parts as good thoughts, good words and good deeds; scholars have also seen in it the god Ahura Mazda or the king’s xvarenah. It is also an emblem of Iranian identity.
- Sacred fire (Atash)Fire is the Zoroastrian symbol of the Creator’s splendour and of truth, and Zoroastrians pray in its presence. Its most sacred form is the ever-burning fire of a fire temple, consecrated with long rituals and fed with wood five times a day.
- Sudreh and kustiThe sudreh is the white undershirt and the kusti the woollen cord tied three times round it at the waist. Zoroastrians put them on at their initiation and wear them for life, untying and retying the cord with prayers each day.
About zoroastrian symbols
Zoroastrians pray in the presence of fire and worship Ahura Mazda, the one God of the religion taught by the prophet Zoroaster. They live today in Iran, in India, where they are known as Parsis, and in diasporas such as those in Britain and the United States. These pages cover the symbols most often asked about: the Faravahar, the winged figure from the palaces and tombs of the Achaemenid kings of Persia; the sacred fire that burns in the fire temples; and the sudreh and kusti, the white shirt and woollen cord that every initiated Zoroastrian wears.
Good thoughts, good words, good deeds
The religion’s credo, in the words of the scholar Jamsheed Choksy, is “good thoughts, good words, good deeds”, and it runs through these symbols. The kusti is wound three times round the waist for those three, and FEZANA, the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America, teaches the three rows of feathers on each of the Faravahar’s wings as the same three.
Whose reading
Much of the meaning given to these symbols comes from later tradition and from teachers today. The Parsi scholar-priest Jivanji Jamshedji Modi pointed out in 1914 that the symbolism of the kusti’s threads rests on later books, not on the Avesta. The pages give each reading to the person or body who holds it: Zoroastrian priests and associations, and the scholars of Encyclopaedia Iranica, who do not always agree with them. Iranica’s Mary Boyce, for one, held that the winged figure first stood for the king’s xvarenah, while Zoroastrians read it as a fravashi, a guardian spirit.
A national emblem
The Faravahar is also an emblem of Iran. FEZANA notes that the Pahlavi dynasty adopted it to represent the Iranian nation, and that it has since become a secular and cultural symbol as well as a religious one, often standing for a pan-Iranian identity.
Sources
- Ātaš, by Mary Boyce, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. III, fasc. 1 (Internet Archive copy), Encyclopaedia Iranica, text
- FEZANA age-appropriate lesson plan: Fravahar, grades 9–12, Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America, prepared by Sousan Bakhtari, revised August 2023, FEZANA, Background knowledge for the teacher
- Kustīg, by Jamsheed K. Choksy, Encyclopaedia Iranica (Internet Archive copy, November 2014), Encyclopaedia Iranica, text
- Fragment of a Relief of Ahuramazda in a Winged Disk, Persepolis, 1943.1062, Harvard Art Museums, collection record, Harvard Art Museums, gallery text
- The Naojote Ceremony of the Parsees, by Jivanji Jamshedji Modi, J. J. Modi, Bombay, 1914 (Internet Archive full text), J. J. Modi (Internet Archive), pp. 14–15
- Fravaši, by Mary Boyce, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. X, fasc. 2 (Internet Archive copy), Encyclopaedia Iranica, Iconography
- Ahura Mazdā, by Mary Boyce, Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. I, fasc. 7 (Internet Archive copy, October 2026), Encyclopaedia Iranica, Achaemenid period
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research