System of ashodad

I have not found any reference in the scriptures to the system of ashodad (cash gift for priests) and am not sure when this good practice evolved to help priests who tend the fire to keep the wolf from their door.
Whenever I visit a fire temple I try to observe how much a devotee offers as ashodad. Quite often it is Rs 10; equally often it is just one rupee! Pre-2007, when the Bardoli anjuman hosted the meeting of the Federation of the Parsi Zoroastrians Anjumans of India, a very rich Parsi put a one rupee coin in the chamach! Recently, I found two instances of devotees offering a pile of sandalwood and big kathis, but placing one and two rupees on the chamach. We care a lot for the fire but a damn for the priest who tends it five times a day!
With this niggardly attitude, how can we expect the sons of practising priests to take up the profession? Is it too much to expect the devotees to put Rs 10 on the chamach?
I know of two panthakis who are paid a salary of just Rs 3,500 per month by the trustees of the agiary where they serve. Pre-2008 the sweepers of the Bombay Parsi Punchayet were paid Rs 4,500 per month, and the peons Rs 5,500. (At Burroughs Wellcome, the sweepers were paid Rs 8,000 per month pre-2007.)
Do we realize that if those who tend the fires are "extinguished,” all our consecrated fires will automatically get extinguished, and along with them our religion? B. T. DASTUR

At Parsiana’s request Zoroastrian scholar Farrokh Vajifdar of London explains the origins of the system of ashodad:
Like it or not, priests too need feeding, watering and sheltering. The term ashodad refers to the wherewithal for this class of society which performs ritual or socio-religious duties within fire temples of various grades or privately sponsored public ceremonies. It means "gift(s) to righteous ones.”
In the earliest times it was not necessarily transacted in cash, but on value services. The Magians of Achemenid times were noted freelancers, and it is reasonable to suppose they were compensated in kind according to their services. In the Sasanian period both priests and rituals abounded: dependent on the degree of patronage and level of required ceremonials. Thus, in the great inscription of Shahpuhr I, the royals and the grandees established soul fires with their resident priests receiving quotas of bread, meat and wine. These necessities for priestly well-being also show up in Ayenbad Kirdir’s account of his visionary journey where he, as holier and purer than the rest of his class, distributes them among the deceased in the Great Hereafter (!).
It is, however, in the later composed Vandidad — a scripture concocted by priests for priests (athornans) — that one discerns the nature and scale of the ashodads. In Chapter III one reads of the benefits of having priests billeted amidst the rural farmsteads of agricultural communities. Bed and full board in exchange for blessings such as are chanted from Yasna 60.5 and Vandidad V.21 — not a bad deal, one must agree!
Chapter VII deals in part with the tariffs for medicos (baéshaz), who most probably were priests since healing by the "sacred word” was, among others, the recommended method of healing. They are classed among the nar ashava — "righteous heroes (of the faith).”
With Chapter IX one enters the healing fees and tariffs scene: a priest heals another for a blessing (!); the governor of a province for the value of a prize camel; a town mayor for the value of a stallion; a borough chief for the value of a bull; the master of a household for the value of a three-year-old cow, the mistress (his wife) of the household for the value of a tillage cow; their laborers to the value of a draught ox; an infant for the value of a lamb. Should any of them find the animals scale of these ashodads unaffordable, then substitutes may be given such that the priest(s) may leave the premises "well-pleased and free from anger!”
In the event that the officiant(s) leave "displeased and enraged” then all manner of ghastly ailments are sure to be visited on their persons and households (readers are spared the details). And to those who quibble over set tariffs — be warned! "Pay up or else!” is the Vandidad’s polite advice (read: unequivocal threat!).
There are passages elsewhere that deal with unworthy priests and heresy mongers, unqualified cleansers (yaozhdathregars) and impudent impostors. It is now up to number-crunchers and busy-body panthakis everywhere to urgently work out today’s cash values; else we will all have to traipse along to fire temples and assembly halls with our camels, horses, and cattle in tow. Have mercy!