Page:Hindu Mythology, Vedic and Purānic.djvu/46

 seven arms, dark eyes, eyebrows and hair. He rides on a ram, wears a poita (Brāhmanical thread), and a garland of fruit. Flames of fire issue from his mouth and seven streams of glory radiate from his body. The following passage, for every sentence of which Dr. Muir quotes a text from the Vedas, gives a good idea of the character and functions of this deity in the Vedic Age.

Agni is an immortal 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 sacrificial offices which the Indian ritual assigns to a number of different human functionaries.