Ancient Indian Historical Tradition c10.79

c10.79

Another excellent instance of this is the development of ‘Aurva Agni’. There was a Bhārgava rishi named Urva. The traditional history about him and his descendants will be set out in chapter XVII, and here it is sufficient to state the salient points briefly. Urva’s son was Ṛcīka, his son was Jamadagni, and his son was Rāma; and a descendant was Agni in Sagara’s time. All these were therefore Aurvas. Jamadagni means ‘devouring fire’—Rāma according to the brahmanical fable destroyed all kṣatriyas off the earth twenty-one times—and Aurva might be treated as meaning ‘born from the thigh’ (ūru), and also ‘belonging to the earth’ (urvī). These names and ideas developed a fable which appears in two forms. According to the first form ⁴ the Bhārgavas were cruelly treated by the Haihayas, Aurva was born then from his mother’s thigh, blinding the Haihayas with his blaze; filled with wrath he determined to destroy the world, but cast the fire of his wrath into the sea, where it became the submarine fire. According to the second form,⁵ from Urva’s thigh was born Aurva Agni, a fuel-less fire, eager to burn up the world, but it was assigned to the submarine region, and this fire is the fire which will destroy the world at the dissolution ¹ and is identified with Viṣṇu.²