The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India (from Rig-Veda to Upanishads) c9.19

c9.19

The Sanskrit word *agnis*, "fire," at all events, is Indo-European; Latin *ignis*, Lithuanian *ugnis*, Old Slavic *ognĭ*. Some kind of worship of the sacrifice fire, and with it some degree of personification, is likely to have taken place in Indo-European times. The Greeks and Romans, as well as the Aryans, offered libations to the fire when using it to convey offerings to their gods. But there was no definite result that we know of; the chaste figure of Hestia of the Greeks, or Vesta of the Romans, contrasted with boisterous male Agni, shows that the initial conception must have been faint and unstable, to enable it to produce shapes so thoroughly diverse. In the main God Agni is in every essential a product of the poet-priests of the Rig-Veda.