Agni Purana

Introduction

The Agni Purana is a ‘Mahapurana’. It usually figures eighth in the list of the eighteen puranas. There are about fifteen and a half thousand shloka in the Agni Purana.

As the Hindus pantheism recognizes three deities to be the most important ones, it is obvious that any Purana will devote much of the text to the glorifications of the three supergods. But despite this, there are Puranas in which Vishnu has relatively more emphasis.

However, there is also a further categorization among the Puranas. The Puranas that talk a lot about Bhakti (devotion or faiths and reason) are ‘called Sattvika Puranas’. The second group of Puranas devotes a large part of the text to the description of creation. Since creation is the work of Brahma thus Puranas give relatively more emphasis to Brahma than to Vishnu or Shiv. They are known as ‘Rajasika Puranas’. The last group of Puranas consists of those that attach significance to Shiv and talk more about minutes and social worms. These are called ‘Tamasika Puranas’.

The Agni Purana comes in the last category, i.e. it is deemed to be a ‘Tamasika Purana’. The others in this group are the Matsya, Kurma, Linga, Shiva and Skanda Puranas.

The narrator of the Agni Purana is the Agni-Dev or fire-god himself. This deity related the subject matter of the Purana to the sage Vashishtha, who then, passed on the knowledge to Vyas Deva (Veda-Vyas). Vyasdeva’s disciple Soota learnt about this Purana from his teacher.

At this point it is prudent to mention the extreme importance of Agni and the other 4 elements. These elements are revered the most by the Hindus.

Why Agni is deemed so much importance

Agni, the fire-god is the most revered deity of the Vedas going by the number of hymns dedicated to it. Although not in the temples as much, this deity is still worshipped in our home, in our hearts and is an integral part of our every ritual. During the Vedic times, perhaps after Indra, Agni was the most popular God since more orisons were created for him than for any other deity. He is described as The bright God with seven rays, variety of shapes and forms; with a body of gold and radiant hair flaming from terrific heads and mouth whose burning jaws and teeth devour all things. With a thousand glowing horns and now radiating lights from a thousand eyes, he is borne by the muddy steeds, marking his chariot’s distinctions course with blackness."

The ancient must have thought fire as a deity when they produced it by rubbing hard the inanimate objects. And realizing fire’s importance in day to day life - for cooking food, for warming, their body in the rigorous weather and also to keep the animals at bay - they accorded it the status of an exalted deity. And after having discovered this powerful source of energy, they must have thought about giving it a human identity. That is why they have found a variety of accounts of its origin.

Agni is said to be the son of Dyaus¹ and Prithvi; he is called the son of Brahma and is then named ‘Abhimani.² ‘. He is reckoned among the children of the Primal sage Kashyapa and Aditi - the mother of all the gods - and hence one of the Adityas. In the later writings he is described as a son of the Angiras - the sage (Who probably discovered fire), king of Pitris (fathers of mankind) and is acknowledged as the author of several hymns and Agni Purana.

The pictorial representations show him as a red man having three legs and seven arms, dark eyes, eyebrows and hair. He rides on a ram, wears a ‘yagyopavita’ (the sacred thread) and a garland of fruit. Flames of fire arising from his mouth, and seven streams radiate from his body. There are detailed descriptions of this deity in the Vedas, which define the character, and functions of this deity in the Vedic age.

Agni is described as an immortal (god) who has taken up his abode with mortals as their guest.’ He is the domestic priest who rises before the dawn and who concentrates in his own person and exercises in a higher sense all the various sacrifice offices which the ancient Hindu rituals assign to number of different human functionaries. He is a sage, the divinest among the sages, immediately acquainted with all the forms of worship; the wise director, the successful accomplisher, and the protector of all ceremonies, who enables men to serve the gods in a correct and acceptable manner in cases where they could not do this with their own unaided skill, as Dr. Muir, in his celebrated work on Indian mythology puts it.

Agni is also described as a swift messenger moving between heaven and earth commissioned both by gods and men to maintain their mutual communication, to announce to the immortals the hymns and to convey them the oblation of their worshippers; or to bring them (the immortals) down from the sky to their place of sacrifice, says Prof. Mitchell in his ‘Hindu mythology’ work.

In fact this role of Agni makes him most sacrosanct to nearly all civilizations. The ancients were amazed at his versatility. He can purify, purge, burn, cook and warm up; hence they found this deity most useful in the worldly sense. No doubt water, air and the other elements have their indispensability in the worldly life but fire appears most indispensable. Hence they began to deem fire as the only link with the heavens.

Worshipping fire ceremonially or feeding the fire for starting any religious ceremony has been prevalent not only among the Hindus but in various other faiths. Fire was given so much importance in some civilizations at their dawn many cults were developed in which keeping the fire alive and making its feeding with the selected incense and clarified butter etc. became the most sacrosanct act. There are numerous such cults. The Parasees still worship fire for the simple reason of its usefulness in various mundane activities.

Since fire came to be believed as the only medium for establishing a communion with the divine, all of our auspicious activities began to be commenced with this most holy act. Whether it is marriage or birth or death ritual, fire-feeding or doing ‘Hom’ came to be established as the inevitable way of starting it. The whole idea behind it was establishing the contact with the divine and seeking the heavenly blessings for the success of any venture in India even up to the modern age.

Moreover, the ancients must have found a unique quality in this sort of energy, which is heat. Almost all energies, if they fail to find a medium for their release, inevitably get converted to heat. If the mechanical energy gets hurdled it would heat up the whole apparatus it is being produced in. The same is true with electrical energy. Also, there is hardly any energy which is not accompanied by the fire energy, viz heat, sooner or later. Hence, fire came to be recognised as the ultimate abode of all other energies. This made fire all the more sacrosanct. Realising the scientific principle behind the conversion of any sort of energy into fire, which got a shot in the arm by the concept emerging out of the nuclear energy that is also ultimately expressing itself in heat whether through fission or fusion, made fire as important to the mortals as Lord Vishnu is to the devout Hindu; the ultimate repository of all the divine entities.

Perhaps fire got this special status also owing to its easy creation process. While the creation of any other type of energy required a special apparatus or equipments, fire could be created without much fuss. The ancients found this trick and they thought they had mastered the universe. It is said that initially, as the Vedas proclaim, it was the sage Bhrigu who discovered fire hidden in the deep valleys, Maybe, some friction by rubbing two dry and hard objects got him this great gift. Due to developing differences with the gods, Bhrigu, in a sulking mood had retired to an unknown place. This caused panic among the gods.

Later on, exhorted by Indra and Vrihaspati, the divine priest, the sage Angiras happened to discover the Agni or fire again. It was a joyous moment this rediscovery of fire is known by the various Suktas created by the sages who heralded this event as the most important happening of their life.

The first Veda, the Rigveda, has numerous hymns praising Lord Agni in superlative terms. Although we shall be elaborating on these events in the later chapter, but it would be right to say now that Agni became the most important discovery in those primordial times and hence came to be recognised as a very potent deity.

It is also mentioned in the sacred texts that the fire-god accompanies the gods when they visit the earth, and shares in the reverence and adoration which they receive. He makes the oblation fragrant; without him the gods experience no satisfac-tion..

Agni, according to the mythology, is considered as the lord, protector and king of men. He is the lord of the house, dwelling, in every abode. He is a guest in every home, he despises no man, he lives in every family. He is, therefore, considered as a mediator between gods and men, and a witness of their actions; hence to the present day he is worshipped, and his blessings are sought on all solemn occasions, at marriage, death etc. In these old hymns Agni is spoken as dwelling in the two pieces of wood which, on being rubbed together produce fire. The ancients must have noticed this as a remarkable thing that a living being should spring out of dry (dead) wood. Poetically, many hymns describe this event of creating fire by rubbing two dead and dry objects, as the child, who as soon as born, begins to consume his parents with extreme voracity! They say that wonderful is his growth, seeing that he is born of a mother who cannot nourish him, but he is nourished by the oblations of a clarified butter which are poured into his mouth and which it consumes voraciously.

This fire-god, Agni, was, for this reason, considered as both, the son and the begetter of the gods. It is because no god is approachable without the medium known as Agni. When the medium is absent how the end can be met? And once the end is achieved it again begets the medium. Hence, Agni is also said to be encompassing the entire divine host. No divinity is without the presence of Agni. It is like the vowel ‘a’ in all letters, which remains hidden in every sound uttered, as they say in a classic example showing Agni’s all pervading presence. Agni