The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c18.s1.50

v1.c18.s1.50

In connexion with the sacrifice three forms of Agni are distinguished in the Yajurveda,² the eater of raw flesh, the eater of corpses, and the sacrificial, and this distinction is perfectly well known in the Rigveda ³ so far as concerns the Agni which bears the offering, and the Agni which devours the bodies of the dead. The term *kravyād* alternates in the Rigveda with *kravyavāhana*, later *kavyavāhana*, and a fire named *kavyavāhana*, appears as invoked with Yama at an offering to the Manes, which is performed on the afternoon of the new moon sacrifice at the last of the four-monthly offerings. From these facts Hillebrandt deduces the theory that from the fire, with which the dead was burned, there was taken a brand to rekindle the fire for the Manes, which he believes to have existed in the time of the Rigveda under the title of the Narāçaṅsa.⁴ The procedure is clearly wholly contrary to the spirit of the ritual, which regards death as requiring the extinction of all fires which are made thereby impure, and the evidence adduced for the theory is obviously inadequate to make it even plausible.