Open the Rigveda at its first line and the first word you meet is agnim: Agni, fire. The oldest collection of Vedic hymns begins with a hymn to the fire, and its opening verse already says what the fire is for.
Ralph Griffith's translation opens "I Laud Agni". Stephanie Jamison and Joel Brereton (Oxford, 2014) render the next word, purohita, as "the one placed to the fore". The verse then names Agni the hotr, the title the Vedic rite gives to the officiant who recites the Rigveda's verses (Kane, History of Dharmasastra, Vol. II, p. 986). From its first line, the fire stands at the front of the rite as one of those who perform it.
The word does double work. Agni is the everyday Sanskrit word for fire and the name of the god, and it shares an Indo-European root with the Latin ignis, which gives English the word igneous.
The messenger
The word is duta, दूत, envoy. The same hymn calls Agni havyavaha, "Oblation-bearer" (1.12.2), and speaks of him performing "embassage" (1.12.4). The traffic runs both ways. Agni carries what is offered upward: the sacrifice he encompasses, in Griffith's words, "Verily goeth to the Gods" (1.1.4). And he brings the gods down to the rite: "He shall bring hitherward the Gods" (1.1.2).
The mouth of the gods
The next verse completes the picture: "By thee, O Agni, all the Immortal guileless Gods eat with thy mouth the oblation that is offered them" (2.1.14). A hymn in the first book packs it into one compound. Agni is juhvasya, which Griffith translates "the ladle is his mouth" (1.12.6). The juhu is the ladle with which offerings are poured into the fire (Kane, Vol. II, p. 986).
In the hymns' own picture, what is placed in the fire is placed in the mouth of the gods.
To the gods, and to the ancestors
The fire carries to two kinds of recipient, and the Shatapatha Brahmana, a prose guide to the Vedic rite, names both: "to the gods indeed he is havyavāhana ('bearer of oblations'), and to the fathers he is kavyavāhana ('the bearer of what is meet for the wise')" (2.6.1.30, translated by Julius Eggeling).
The Rigveda's hymn to the Fathers says the same in verse: "Thou, Agni Jātavedas, when entreated, didst bear the offerings which thou madest fragrant, and give them to the Fathers who did eat them with Svadhā" (10.15.12, Griffith). That hymn stands at the root of the ancestor rites described in the fortnight of the ancestors.
Fire, water, and the five great offerings
The tradition offers in more than one medium, and it is exact about which goes where. Manu names the five great offerings of the householder (3.70, translated by Ganganatha Jha), and the commentator Medhatithi explains how each is made.
| The offering | To whom | How it is made |
|---|---|---|
| ब्रह्मयज्ञ Brahmayajna | The Veda and its seers | Teaching and study |
| पितृयज्ञ Pitryajna | The ancestors | Tarpana: water, or food, offered |
| देवयज्ञ Devayajna | The gods | Homa: the offering into fire |
| भूतयज्ञ Bhutayajna | All beings | Bali: offerings set in places other than the fire |
| नृयज्ञ Nriyajna | Human beings | Honouring guests |
The lawbook of Baudhayana, quoted in Jha's notes, adds the word spoken with each: to the gods one offers svaha, "ending with the supplying of fuel"; to the ancestors svadha, "ending with the water-offering". Water has its own rite, and an old one: the tarpan poured for the ancestors. The offering to the gods is the one built around a flame, and the fathers, as Eggeling's text shows, receive through the fire as well.
Kane suggests the idea beneath this emphasis on Agni: "the oblations thrown into the fire reach the sun, that sends rain, from which springs corn, that is the sustenance of all beings" (Vol. II, p. 680), and points to Manu.
Three fires, and the one at home
A householder who took on the full Shrauta ritual of the Vedas kept three fires, and Kane sets out how they stood.
| The fire | Where, and its shape | Its work |
|---|---|---|
| गार्हपत्य Garhapatyathe householder's fire | West of the fire of offering; a round mound | Kept burning; the fire of offering is taken from it morning and evening |
| आहवनीय Ahavaniyathe fire of offering | The eastern fire; a square mound | Offerings to the gods: where no text says otherwise, every homa is made here, with ghee |
| दक्षिणाग्नि Dakshinagnithe southern fire | South-east of the householder's fire; a half-circle | Among its work, the monthly ancestor offering (pindapitryajna): its rice is cooked on this fire and offered in it |
The three were reserved for Vedic rites alone (Vol. II, p. 989). By Kane's own century they had grown rare: in certain parts of India, he wrote, one could hardly find a single keeper of Shrauta fires among thousands of Brahmins (p. 678).
The fire of daily life was a single one. A householder without the three made his offerings every morning and evening in one domestic fire, the aupasana or grhya fire. Most writers, Kane reports, hold that it is the wedding fire, kindled by the couple on their marriage day; one Grihya Sutra has it carried in a vessel ahead of the bridegroom all the way to his house (pp. 678 to 679). The digest Smrtyarthasara asks a householder to keep six fires, or five, or down to one, "but should never remain without fire" (p. 679).
Svaha, and what goes in
The word spoken as an offering meets the flame is svaha, स्वाहा. Monier-Williams glosses it "hail! hail to! may a blessing rest on!", "an exclamation used in making oblations to the gods", and it follows the name of the one receiving: agnaye svaha, to Agni, svaha. Tradition also personifies Svaha as the wife of Agni, the goddess who presides over burnt offerings.
| What is offered | In the texts |
|---|---|
| घृत Gheeghrta, clarified butter | Agni is ghrtahavana, "to whom the holy oil is poured" (Rigveda 1.12.5); where a text names no substance, homa is made with clarified butter (Kane, Vol. II, p. 986). |
| Graincakes, parched grain, boiled rice | The Shatapatha Brahmana's offering to Agni as bearer to the fathers is cake, parched grain and porridge, laid in the ladle on butter (2.6.1.31); the monthly ancestor offering of the Shrauta rite, the pindapitryajna, is boiled rice (Kane, Vol. II, p. 1086). |
| समिध् Samidhfuel sticks | Laying fuel sticks on the fire is a named act of the new and full moon rites (Kane, Vol. II, p. 1010). |
Why our ceremonies are fires
Every ceremony we offer is a yagya: a fire built by Brahmins in Vrindavan, tended through the whole rite, and visible throughout the recording. The name is read aloud in the sankalpa, the written intention goes into the fire with the other offerings, and the mantras are offered into the flame.
The tradition holds that the fire carries what is placed in it. The hymns gave that belief its oldest words: the messenger chosen by those who offer, the mouth by which the gods receive, the bearer of offerings to the gods and to the fathers. And when the ancestor rites are kept, the water of tarpan and the fire of the yagya are both given, each to its own work.