AGNI

AGNI The name of both the Vedic Hindu god of fire and sacrificial fire itself, Agni is an Indo-European word cognate with Latin ignis. The Rig Veda, the oldest text of ancient India (c. 1000 b.c. at latest), places his name as the initial word in the first of its 1,028 hymns: "Agni I praise . . ." as purohita (domestic priest), as god of yajña (sacrifice), as invoker of gods. Of all deities, only Indra is addressed more often; Agni is celebrated in some 200 hymns. The mystery of Agni is the mystery of fire that appears miraculously from churning fire sticks, but may as suddenly disappear. The hidden Agni, even his concealment in the depths of cosmic waters or plants (Rig Veda 10.51), is a constant theme, for he must be recovered to maintain both the fire for household daily offerings and the great world-maintaining sacrificial fire. As receiver of offerings, he is mediator between human and divine realms. Agni's heat and brightness frequently relate him to the fiery solar orb, S?rya or Savitr.

The Vedic student does agnik?rya, daily offering to Agni and, according to tradition, after completion of Vedic study, when Agni is established in the house by a married couple the god is present in one, three, or five offering fires. The single fire is aup?sana, but tret?gni, a triple form, is standard for a sacrificer. If the householders maintain ritual fires routinely for the daily morning and evening offerings of fresh milk, a ritual known as agnihotra, both husband and wife are eligible to project the fires onto a larger arena in order to perform solemn soma and animal sacrifices or other large-scale rituals involving as many as sixteen or seventeen priests. The initial, paradigmatic soma ritual, agnish?oma, is "praise of Agni," following which householders are entitled to perform other soma sacrifices such as agnicayana, the creation of a cosmic Agni, reintegrating all of time and space into an eagle-shaped altar with five layers of a thousand or more bricks, a rite requiring a year or more in antiquity, as much as forty days in contemporary performance by some Vedic Brahmans still active in South India. The sacrificer carries a pan of embers and is thereby identified with Agni and another Vedic god, Praj?pati, as world-creator.

In post-Vedic classical Hinduism, Sanskrit epics and Pur?n. as (e.g., the Agni Pur??a) continued some of Agni's mythic roles, often in connection with Indra, Varu?a, Vishnu, Shiva, Skanda, Soma, and Yama. His ritual centrality, however, gradually diminished, and temples, sculptures, or paintings of Agni are rare. Domestic and temple p?j? (worship) prominently maintained ?rati, the waving of burning incense or camphor before a god or goddess, although homa (offerings) into an actual fire still continued. Yoga and other ascetic practices became prominent, many involving tapas, an interior heat or fire that could replace Agni with a cosmic-human body, simultaneously sacrificer, medium, and recipient.

Although not always recognized ritually by name, Agni still is present in contemporary Hinduism in life-cycle rituals, particularly marriages and cremations, both involving circumambulation of fire. The latter is antyesh?i, a "final offering" to Agni kravy?d, "consumer" of the body. In addition to a long history in Hinduism, Agni and homa rituals are evident in Jainism and Buddhism, and in the latter have been carried in various guises across Asia.

David M. Knipe

See alsoAshvamedha ; Brahmanas ; Hinduism (Dharma) ; Indra ; Soma ; Varu? a ; Vedic Aryan India ; Yajña

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Knipe, David M. In the Image of Fire. Vedic Experiences of Heat. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975. Situates Agni in the history of religious symbols of fire and the dynamics of heating and cooling.

Macdonell, A. A. Vedic Mythology. 1897. Reprint, Varanasi: Indological Book House, 1963. Detailed description of Agni, primarily from Rig Veda and Atharva Veda hymns.

O'Flaherty, Wendy Doniger. Hindu Myths. Baltimore: Penguin, 1975. Ch. 3, selected Agni motifs from Vedic Sa?hit?s to Mah?bh?rata.

Staal, Frits. Agni. The Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar. 2 vols. Berkeley, Calif.: Asian Humanities, 1983. Monumental work on 1975 Agnicayana sacrifice in Kerala; excellent plates.