AGNI

AGNI. – The god of fire, Agni (pron. agnni), shares with Indra primacy among the gods of ancient India. The Rgveda devotes approximately 200 hymns to him, and begins and ends with his name. His figure is scarcely anthropomorphic, because the god’s continual presence in the form of fire precluded fanciful representations. His nature, on the other hand, is mysterious and complex. He is the one and only A. kindled in many places; immortal and at the same time generated by men at each new kindling, obtained by rubbing two pieces of wood together. The Rgveda, III, 29, 13, says: «Mortals have generated the immortal. The ten sisters (that is, the fingers) have brought him forth». And since the pieces of wood must be rubbed vigorously, A. is also called «son of strength». The god has a threefold abode: in heaven, as the sun; in the waters, where he descends with the rain from clouds charged with lightning; and in the plants, into which he enters with the waters and remains latent until, released from the wood, he returns to heaven in smoke and flame. A late hymn of the Rgveda, X, 51-53, represents the gods searching for A., hidden in the waters and plants in order to escape the burdensome task of messenger between earth and heaven. His luminosity betrays him, and, discovered by Yama, he is persuaded by Vāruna, the spokesman of the gods, to continue the work of the brothers who preceded him, in return for immortality and participation in the enjoyment of the sacrificial offerings. A. is not always represented as the bearer of the offering; at times he himself is «the mouth and tongue of the gods», on whose behalf he devours the sacrificial foods. A. is in every case the essential element of the sacrifice, and is therefore equated with the first of the officiating priests and called the divine Hotar. Oldenberg deserves credit for having brought to light an aspect of A. which, though little prominent in the Rgveda, later acquires full prominence in the Grhyasūtra, or rules of domestic worship: that of god of the hearth and therefore patron of the family and the household. Associated with this quality is the mission of destroyer of evil spirits. In the mythology of the Mahābhārata (v.) A. appears in the dual aspect of sacrificial fire and cosmic fire. Son of Brahmā, he has Svāhā as his consort and Skanda, the god of war, as his son; latent in all beings, nothing is unknown to him of what the three worlds contain. His greatest undertaking consists in the destruction of the Khāṇḍava forest, which he devoured to satisfy his implacable hunger. A. is also one of the Lokapāla, or «guardians of the world», and protects the south-eastern region.