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PERCEPTIONS
INDIA-2001
encyclopedia
AGNI
(THE PRIMEVAL FIRE)
Agni,
god of
Fire, prominent
deity of the
Vedas.
Shown as
a
red
man,
having 2 heads,
3 legs
and 7 arms, dark eyes, eyebrows and hair.
He rides on a ram, wears a
Brah-manical thread, and a garland of
fruit. Flames of fire issue from his
mouth and seven streams of glory
radiate from the body.
The very first word of the very first
verse of the very first hymn in the very
first
Mandala
of the
Rig Veda
invokes
Agni. And who or what is Agni?
O Agni, warm coldest dust of the gods,
Life and Light of Existence; Infinite
energy of consciousness, destroyer and
preserver!
Agni is "the divine force which builds the
cosmos, the destructive energy which shat-
ters unwanted forms, ...also the great puri-
fying agency hidden in all things and the
'sacrificial priest' and 'invoker', the 'guest' in
the human tabernacle, the 'immortal in mor-
tals' which makes the gods manifest"
Jeanine Miller
Agni is behind and beyond, at once centre
and circumference, charging, enveloping and
sustaining everything. There are so many
transactions, so many variations of stasis and
flux, but Agni is the root and sap of all, the
alpha and the omega: and from the Mystic
Fire, the fundamental Agni, issue
Jada-Agni
(ordinary fire),
Vaidyuta-Agni
(electric fire)
and
Saura-Agni
(solar or nuclear fire), the
great God Agni who is the Divine Master of
things :
'Agni (as
Daksha)
entered into
Aditi
(the
Sun) to produce the
Aditya...
and they gave
LIGHT to the world'.
"All things on earth and in heaven are,
therefore, the handiwork of Agni, and the
climax of them all is reached in LIFE'.
'The manifested World of Sound is noth-
ing but Agni'.
Agni is
Shakthi-Power
too, deus ex
machina in the Universe, life-giver,
life-sustainer, and life-destroyer'.
The Universe without (the macrocosm)
and the Universe within (the microcosm)
are alike peopled with Powers and
Personalities, perils and possibilities,
purposings and perversions, but Agni is
the womb of all, the home of all, the
tomb of all - and the seed-cell of
resurrection as well.
Sacred Fire
: In the Atarsh Niyaesh, the
symbol of Fire is personified as the son
of Ahura /Mazda, and in Yasna
Haptanghaiti 36:6 as the most beautiful
Body of God. These references are not to
the actual physical Fire, but the Divine
Spark or the Inner Fire in man, and
therefore the Fire is our inner teacher or
Gum.
'Gu' means darkness and 'Ru' means
remover or destroyer. The word means, He
who destroys the Darkness of Ignorance.
The fire or Agni, destroys, and burns
agnyana
or ignorance through its
self-effulgent illumination, within the heart.
Fire in its latent aspect is contained
within all forms manifest in the universe. It
is the Divine energy, the
Shakthi
aspect
which lies at the root of all creation, and is
derived from Mazda. Therefore, in Yasna
62, Fire is called Atar', the Son of Ahura
Mazda and throughout the Avesta texts, he is
always conceived as the Inner Spark. The
vital fire of the sun and that which permeates
all creation is called USHATANA. When
the manifest form is destroyed and returned
to its elements the Ushatana returns to the
Sun.
The Fire present in the vegetable king-
dom is described as URVAZISHTA and the
one in the animal kingdom as ATAR
SPEN-ISHTA. Here, they are equated with
the life force contained in the seed and the
sperm.
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