AGNI. - The god of fire, Agni (pron. agnni), shares with Indra the primacy among the gods of ancient India. The Rgveda dedicates ca. 200 hymns to him, and with his name it begins and ends. His figure is scarcely anthropomorphic because the continual presence of the god in the aspect of fire excluded fantastic representations. His nature, on the other hand, is mysterious and complex. He is the single A. kindled in many places; immortal and at the same time generated by men at every new lighting, obtained by rubbing two pieces of wood together. The Rgveda, III, 29, 13 says: «The mortals have generated the immortal. The ten sisters (that is, the fingers) have aroused him». And since the pieces of wood must be rubbed with force, A. is also called «son of force». The seat of the god is threefold: in the sky as the sun; in the waters, where he descends with the rain from the clouds charged with lightning, and in the plants, into which he penetrates with the waters and remains latent until, released from the wood, he returns to the sky in smoke and flame. A late hymn of the Rgveda, X, 51-53, shows us the gods setting out in search of A. hidden in the waters and in the plants to escape the heavy task of messenger between earth and sky. His luminosity betrays him, and once discovered by Yama, he is persuaded by Vāruna, the spokesman of the gods, to continue the work of the brothers who preceded him, in exchange for immortality and a share in the enjoyment of the sacrificial offerings. A. is not always represented as the bearer of the offering; at times he is himself «the mouth and tongue of the gods», on whose behalf he devours the sacrificial foods. In any case A. is the essential element of the sacrifice, and is therefore equated with the first of the officiating priests and called the divine Hotar. It was the merit of Oldenberg to have brought into relief an aspect of A. which, little prominent in the Rgveda, later acquires full evidence in the Grhyasūtra, or rules of domestic worship: that of god of the hearth and therefore patron of the family and the house. Associated with this quality of his is the mission of destroyer of evil spirits. In the mythology of the Mahābhārata (v.) A. appears in the double aspect of sacrificial fire and cosmic fire. Son of Brahmā, he has as his consort Svāhā and as his son Skanda, the god of war; latent in all beings, nothing is unknown to him of what the three worlds contain. His greatest exploit consists in the destruction of the Khāṇḍava forest, which he devoured to sate his implacable hunger. A. is also one of the Lokapāla, or «guardians of the world», and protects the south-eastern region.