Agni, the Hindu God of fire, the fire of purification

Conscious TV

May 23, 2021

Agni is the personification of the Hindu god who represents fire. He is one of the most important Vedic deities: the one who accepts sacrifices, the messenger of the gods, the god who is eternally young as he is always reborn when the fire of the new day is lit. He is therefore immortal.

Agni is the son of the goddess Priviti, who is the Earth; and of the god Diaus Pitar, who is God the Father - a derivation of a primitive Indo-European term which in Europe would bifurcate, resulting in Zeus, Deus in Latin, and Jú-Piter. He is depicted as a red man, with two heads (one benevolent and one maleficent), three legs and seven arms, and with dark eyes, eyebrows and hair. He usually wears a poita (Brahmanical cord) and a garland of fruits. Flames of fire emanate from his mouth and seven rays of glory gush from his body. He also represents the fire of the sun and the light of the hearts of those who worship him. As the divine personification of the sacrificial fire, he is the mouth of the gods, the bearer of offerings and the intermediary between humans and gods.

The god Agni is said to have been born from the mouth of the cosmic moon Purusha. This god is depicted pictorially, as we said, with two heads, one representing immortality and the other destruction. He has 100 eyes given to him by Shiva himself, so he sees everything and is able to protect homes.

Agni completes the trinity along with Varuna and Indra of the higher gods in the rigveda. Gradually these gradually faded into the background. Its vehicle is the ram, and in its fire sacrifices are accepted, and it is therefore the way and vehicle between this world and the other, the divine.

Shiva's fire will raze the world to the ground at the end of days, while Agnis' fire will purify the filth and cleanse the sins of the world. This is why the corpses of the dead are burned in the Hindu tradition. Or at least that is the reason on a spiritual level. Perhaps the more mundane reason is to prevent the spread of plagues of great diseases.

The purifying capacity of Agni's fire was conceived by the sage Bhrigu (wise Hindu lord created by the god Brahma). Bhrigu abducted another man's wife and the offended husband asked Agni where he could find her as he knew all the homes. Agni told him, but Bhrigu became so angry that he cursed Agni to eat everything in his path, pure or impure. Agni excused himself on the plea that being a God it was his duty to speak the truth under all circumstances.

Bhrigu gave him power to purify everything that burns, as he understood that his motives were of divine origin. Certain objects are consecrated to him, related to the art of lighting the hearth: the wood, which makes the fire possible, the axe that has cut the wood, the bellows that fans the flames and thus Agni, and the knife, for in sacrifices to Agni they used to be smeared with butter for better combustion.

To know more about Agni, feel free to watch the course of the writer Fernando Sanchez Dragó, where he talks about this and many other interesting aspects of what we have called the Elixir of Eternal Youth; on our Conscious Television platform.