Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 6 (Indian and Iranian).djvu/73



MONG the gods connected with earth the first place belongs to Agni, who, after Indra, receives the greatest number of hymns in the Ṛgveda, more than two hundred being in his honour. Unlike Indra, however, anthropomorphism has scarcely affected Agni's personality, which is ever full of the element from which it is composed. Thus he is described as butter-haired or as flame-haired, tawny-bearded, and butter-backed; in one account he is headless and footless, but in another he has three heads and seven rays; he faces in all directions; he has three tongues and a thousand eyes. He is often likened to animals, as to a bull for his strength or to a calf as being born, or to a steed yoked to the pole of the sacrifice; or again he is winged, an eagle or an aquatic bird in the waters; and once he is even called a winged serpent. His food is ghee or oil or wood, but like the other gods he drinks the soma. Brilliant in appearance, his track is black; driven by the wind, he shaves the earth as a barber a beard. He roars terribly, and the birds fly before his devouring sparks; he rises aloft to the sky and licks even the heaven. He is himself likened to a chariot, but he is borne in one and in it he carries the gods to the sacrifice. He is the child of sky and earth or of Tvaṣṭṛ and the waters, but Viṣṇu and Indra begat him, or Indra generated him between two stones. On earth he is produced in the two fire-sticks who are figured as his father (the upper) and his mother (the lower), or as two mothers, or as a mother who can-