Agni

For other uses, see Agni (disambiguation).

Agni
Devanagari	अग्नि

Agni (Template:Lang-sa) is a Hindu deity, one of the most important of the Vedic gods. He is the god of fire and the acceptor of sacrifices. The sacrifices made to Agni go to the deities because Agni is a messenger from and to the other gods. He is ever-young, because the fire is re-lit every day, yet he is also immortal.

Agni, the Vedic god of fire who presides over the earth, has made the transition into the Hindu pantheon of gods, without losing his importance. With Vayu and Surya, who presided over the air and sky, he is one of the supreme gods in the Rig Veda. The link between heaven and earth, he is associated with Vedic sacrifice, taking offerings to the other world in the fire. His vehicle is the ram.

His cult survived the change of the ancient fire worship into modern Hinduism. The sacred fire-drill (agnimathana) for procuring the temple-fire by friction – symbolic of Agni's daily miraculous birth – is still used.

Etymology

The word agni is Sanskrit for "fire" (noun), cognate with Latin ignis (the root of English ignite), Russian огонь (ogon), Polish "ogień," Lithuanian - ugnis - all with the meaning 'fire' -, with the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European root being h₁égni-. Agni has three forms: fire, lightning and the sun. It has also been suggested that the term is related to the modern Polynesian words for "fire" or "flame," such as the Samoan "afi" and Hawaiian "ahi."

In the Vedas

Agni is the first word of the first hymn of the Rigveda:-

अग्नि॒म् ई॑ळे पुरो॒हि॑तं यज्ञ॒स्य॑ देव॒म् ऋत्वि॒ज॑म् । होता॑रं रत्नधा॒त॑मम् ॥

agním īḷe puróhitaṃ / yajñásya devám ṛtvíjam / hótāraṃ ratnadhâtamam

Agni I laud, the high priest, god, minister of sacrifice, The invoker, lavishest of wealth.

He is the supreme director of religious ceremonies and duties, and figures as messenger between mortals and gods. Vedic rituals concerned with Agni include the Agnicayana, that is, the piling of the fire altar, the Agnihotra, viz., invocation of Agni.

The Rigveda often says that Agni arises from water or dwells in the waters. He may have originally been the same as Apam Napat, who is also sometimes described as fire arising from water. This may have originally referred to flames from natural gas or oil seepages surfacing through water, as in a fire temple at Surakhany near Baku in Azerbaijan [1]. Other Rigvedic names, epitheta or aspects of Agni include Matarishvan, Bharata and the Apris.

Agni is a deva, second only to Indra in the power and importance attributed to him in Vedic mythology, with 218 out of 1,028 hymns of the Rigveda dedicated to him. He is Indra's twin, and therefore a son of Dyaus Pita and Prthivi. He is married to Svaha, "oblation" personified.

He is one of the Guardians of the directions, representing the southeast.

He is said in the Rigveda to have two parents (the two parts of the firedrill used to start the fire), and ten servant maids (the fingers of the man who is lighting the fire.)

Depictions

In Hindu art, Agni is depicted with two or seven hands, two heads and three legs. He has seven fiery tongues with which he licks sacrificial butter. He rides a ram or in a chariot harnessed by fiery horses. His attributes are an axe, torch, prayer beads and a flaming spear.

Agni is represented as red and two-faced, suggesting both his destructive and beneficent qualities, and with black eyes and hair, three legs and seven arms. He rides a ram, or a chariot pulled by goats or, more rarely, parrots. Seven rays of light emanate from his body. One of his names is Saptajihva, "having seven tongues".

Epithets

Abhimani (from Sanskrit: abhi towards + the verbal root man to think, reflect upon) meaning dignified, proud; Longing for, thinking upon.

Legends

Agni is the eldest son of Brahma. In Visnu Purana , Agni (Abhimani) the fire god is said to have sprung from the mouth of the Virat purusha, the Cosmic Man. His wife is Svaha. Abhimani had three sons of surpassing brilliancy: Pavaka, Pavamana, and Suchi, the personifications of the three fires that produced our earth and humanity (VP 1:10). All these three names indicate purity. Abhimanin, his three sons, and their 45 sons constitute the mystic 49 fires of the Puranas and theosophy.(cf Agni Purana.)

As the eldest son of Brahma, Abhimani represents the cosmic Logos, the first force produced in the universe at its evolution, the fire of cosmic creative desire.

His three sons, according to the Vayu Purana, stand for three different aspects of Agni (fire): Pavaka is the electric fire, Pavamana the fire produced by friction, and Suchi the solar fire. Interpreted on the cosmic and human planes, these three fires are "Spirit, Soul, and Body, the three great Root groups, with their four additional divisions" (SD 2:247). They are said to have been cursed by the sage Vasishtha to be born again and again (cf BP 4:24,4; SD 2:247-8). "Every fire has a distinct function and meaning in the worlds of the physical and the spiritual. It has, moreover, in its essential nature a corresponding relation to one of the human psychic faculties, besides its well determined chemical and physical potencies when coming in contact with the terrestrially differentiated matter" (SD 1:521).

Agni is also an important entity in ayurveda.It is considered to be the one which is responsible for the sustenance of life. Agni helps in the various physiological functions of the body.

In other faiths and religions

Sculpture of Agni from Musée Guimet

In Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, he is a lokapāla guarding the Southeast. Jigten lugs kyi bstan bcos: which translates, "Make your hearth in the southeast corner of the house, which is the quarter of Agni". He also plays a seizurish role in most Buddhist homa fire-puja rites. A typical praise to Agni starts "Son of Brahma, Lord of the World, King of fire gods empowered by Takki, Whose supreme wisdom burns all delusion [...]"

See also

• Hindu deities
• Apris
• Atar (Zoroastrian yazata of fire)

External links

• Agni Dev (Agni Deva)