Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c18.s2: § 2. Bṛhaspati and other forms of Agni

The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads v1.c18.s2

Language
English

§ 2. Bṛhaspati and other forms of Agni

v1.c18.s2.1

Bṛhaspati is a god of much importance in the eyes of the Rigveda, since it devotes to him eleven hymns and mentions him, under that name or as Brahmaṇaspati, about 170 times. He forms with Indra a pair in two hymns. But his character appears very clearly as a compound of the activities of other gods. Thus his appearance is like that of Agni: he has seven mouths, seven rays, a beautiful tongue, he is bright, pure, ruddy, and clear-voiced. He has sharp horns and a hundred wings; he carries an iron axe, wrought by Tvaṣṭṛ, or a golden hatchet, and rides on a car with ruddy steeds. But he is marked out by having a bow whose string is Ṛta, which here doubtless refers to the holy rite, the sacrifice, showing that his weapons are also priestly. He is said to have been born from great light in the highest heaven, and with thunder to have dispelled the darkness, but also to be the half of the two worlds or of Tvaṣṭṛ, and he is the producer of the gods.

v1.c18.s2.2

Bṛhaspati is especially the divine priest; he is the Purohita, but also the Brahman, and the Brāhmaṇas constantly play on his position as the Brahman priest or the Brahman, ‘the holy power’, of the gods. In the later texts as Brahman he is probably denoted as the technical priest of that name, who oversees the sacrifice and, like Agni, is able by his invention to make good any defects which he may observe in the sacrifice. In the Rigveda the technical sense is doubtful: the Brāhmaṇācchaṅsin priest may, however, be meant in one or two cases.² He sings hymns, metre is his, he has singing hosts and thence is called Gaṇapati, a term once given to Indra. He is, as his name denotes, the lord of prayer, the generator of prayer which he communicated to men: hence in the later texts he is lord of speech, Vācaspati, a name which is specially his in post-Vedic literature.

v1.c18.s2.3

² Oldenberg, *Rel. des Veda*², pp. 38 ff., correcting Geldner, *Ved. Stud.* ii. 143 ff.; *GN.* 1916, pp. 731 ff.

v1.c18.s2.4

Bṛhaspati is often named beside Agni, but he is not rarely identified with him:¹ he is given three abodes, is called son of strength, associated with Narāçaṁsa, Mātariçvan and the Aṅgirases. He is lord of the dwelling, while Agni for his part is called lord of prayer. Like Agni, however, he is associated with Indra, and becomes specially connected with the myth of the overthrow of Vala and the release of the cows, in which he acts with his singing host. He splits the mountains, drives out and distributes the cows, and the Atharvaveda² makes his conquest of Vala proverbial. In winning the cows he finds the light, the Dawn, and Agni. He is also said to roar like a bull, to shatter forts, to overthrow Vṛtras and conquer foes. He is even given the epithet of bolt-bearer and is made a friend of the Maruts. He has also the more general traits of being a bestower of wealth and long life, a remover of disease, and a father. He stimulates also the life of the plants, through him the sun and moon rise alternately, and in the Yajurveda³ he is made the regent of the constellation Tiṣya, while in post-Vedic literature he is the ruler of Jupiter.

v1.c18.s2.5

¹ RV. i. 38. 13; iii. 26. 2; v. 43. 12.

v1.c18.s2.6

² ix. 3. 2.

v1.c18.s2.7

³ TS. iv. 4. 10. 1; TB. iii. 1. 1. 5; cf. Keith, *JRAS.* 1911, pp. 794 ff.

v1.c18.s2.8

It is clear that the name was held by the Rigvedic poets to be derived from a word *bṛh* in the sense of Brahman, prayer, as it is parallel with Brahmaṇaspati, and the meaning of the name is, therefore, lord of prayer or devotion. The great similarity to Agni, which makes Bṛhaspati in much merely his double, can best be explained on the theory that Bṛhaspati is Agni in his priestly form, but that the connexion was one early developed.⁴ The most plausible of alternative views is undoubtedly that of Roth,⁵ which takes the god as a direct personification of the power of devotion, and Oldenberg⁶ develops a similar idea in insisting that Bṛhaspati is the typical priest who assists in the feats of the gods by his songs and his prayers. In that case it is necessary to suppose that he has won to himself the attributes of the gods by his close association with them in their activities, a view to which there is no good ground of objection in itself, but which is on the other hand not in any way more probable than the idea that the name was at first an epithet of the god. On the other hand Weber⁷ and Hopkins⁸ start from the marked similarity to Indra in the warlike deeds of Bṛhaspati, and make him out to be derived from the character of Indra modified under the views of the priesthood:⁹ this view is also legitimate, but is subject to the objection that on the whole it is easier to explain the development, if the Agni side be taken as the standing point in the discussion of the nature of the god. It is, however, impossible to accept the efforts of Hillebrandt¹ to prove that Bṛhaspati is the moon, especially as a god of magic and the magic southern fire; the long list of parallels with Soma which he adduces will on investigation be found merely to refer either to points which are commonplaces of many Vedic gods, or to points in which Agni and Soma agree. The fact that Bṛhaspati produces effects on the plants is wholly inadequate to make out that he is a moon god, for there is no very clear trace in the Rigveda of the doctrine that all growth or even that most growth is due to the action of the moon: the heat and the water which are characteristic of Agni are essentially connected with plant life.

v1.c18.s2.9

⁴ Macdonell, *Ved. Myth.*, p. 103. Hillebrandt (*Ved. Myth.* i. 408) took *bṛhas—* as growth, but (Kl. Ausg., p. 60) accepts ‘das magische Fluidum ritueller Zauberkraft.’ Cf. Chap. 27, § 2.

v1.c18.s2.10

⁵ ZDMG. i. 73.

v1.c18.s2.11

⁶ *Op. cit.*, pp. 66–8; SBE. xlvi. 94; GN. 1915, pp. 196 ff.

v1.c18.s2.12

⁷ *Vājapeya*, p. 15.

v1.c18.s2.13

⁸ *Rel. of India*, p. 136.

v1.c18.s2.14

⁹ Their preference is visible in AB. vii. 38 (cf. KU. iii. 1; TS. ii. 5. 1), where insult to him is censured in Indra; cf. Weber, *Rājasūya*, pp. 109 f.

v1.c18.s2.15

¹ *Ved. Myth.* i. 606 ff.; ii. 102 ff.; (Kl. Ausg.), pp. 60 ff.; *contra*, C. Strauss, *Bṛhaspati im Veda* (1905); Oldenberg, GN. 1915, pp. 200 ff.

v1.c18.s2.16

The chief importance of Bṛhaspati lies in the fact that he is in the earlier Vedic period the root from which sprung the god Brahman, who appears first in the later stratum of the Brāhmaṇa texts.²

v1.c18.s2.17

² Keith, *Aitareya Āraṇyaka*, p. 350.

v1.c18.s2.18

While the identity of Bṛhaspati with Agni has been obscured by the development of the character of the deity, the identity of Vaiçvānara is made absolutely certain by the constant mention of Agni under that epithet in the Rigveda. It denotes ‘pertaining to all men’, and is normally believed to refer to Agni in all his aspects, celestial as well as terrestrial. In point of fact, however, the mention of Vaiçvānara is mainly in certain definite contexts. He appears in connexion with the descent of celestial fire and the agency of the Bhṛgus and Mātariçvan, and once³ Agni Vaiçvānara is styled Mātariçvan. In the Brāhmaṇas Vaiçvānara has a direct reference to the sun in the fact that it is said that Agni Vaiçvānara is the year, and that cakes offered on twelve potsherds are frequently presented to him. Vaiçvānara appears also in comparison with the Maruts as connected with the princely rank: the Dhruva cup which is offered to Vaiçvānara is guarded by a prince,⁴ and is employed in a variety of rites for the preservation or restoration of lordly power.⁵ It is clear also that in these texts the fire specially related to Vaiçvānara is the Āhavanīya, so that we have a good warrant for seeing in the god a form of the sun, which on earth has a counterpart in the Āhavanīya fire. This explains well the controversy which existed even in early days regarding the nature of the god: it was maintained by the Yājñikas that Vaiçvānara was the sun, while Çākapūṇi, with whom in effect Yāska⁶ agrees, held that he was the terrestrial Agni. Vaiçvānara would then be a suitable epithet of the sun, who is common to all men and seen of all.

v1.c18.s2.19

³ RV. iii. 26. 2.

v1.c18.s2.20

⁴ ApÇS. xii. 16.

v1.c18.s2.21

⁵ Hillebrandt, *Ved. Myth.* ii. 112 ff. He sees in Vaiçvānara’s connexion with the Pūrus and the Bharatas, and in RV. i. 59. 1; iii. 23. 4; v. 1. 10, traces of a κοινὴ ἑστία of the Vedic tribes, but this is implausible.

v1.c18.s2.22

⁶ Nir. vii. 23 and 31.

v1.c18.s2.23

The name Narāçaṅsa is also used of the god, and with it is connected one of the great ritual distinctions of the Vedic ritual: some families took in the Āprī hymns, used at fore-offerings in the ritual of the animal sacrifice, a verse addressed to Narāçaṁsa, others took in place Tanūnapāt, while only a few families, such as that of Medhātithi Kāṇva and Dīrghatamas Aucathya, solved the dispute by including invocations of both in the hymns.¹ In the long run the tradition of the Jamadagni² family prevailed and their invocation of Tanūnapāt was accepted, the Vasiṣṭha family, however, remaining faithful to their invocation of Narāçaṁsa. The god has little that is characteristic about him in the Rigveda : he thrice a day sprinkles the sacrifice with honey ; he anoints the three heavens and the gods. Soma is said to go between Narāçaṁsa and the celestial one, which may refer to the contrast of terrestrial and celestial fires. In the Brāhmaṇas there is more distinct information : five cups are styled Nārāçaṁsa, two at each of the first two pressings and one at the third : after being tasted by the priests they are placed on the south oblation-holder.³ The epithet ‘drunk by Narāçaṁsa’ is used of Soma in connexion with an offering to the Fathers, and the connexion of Narāçaṁsa and the Fathers appears in one passage in the Rigveda,⁴ which may conceivably point to the later ritual having been in this respect known to the Rigveda. Moreover in two hymns Narāçaṁsa seems to be identified with Bṛhaspati.⁵ On this ground Hillebrandt⁶ concludes that Narāçaṁsa is a designation of a moon god of the dead, equivalent to Bṛhaspati, and of the Dakṣiṇa fire for the Fathers. He strengthens this view by pointing out that in a Brāhmaṇa text⁷ the term three-headed and six-eyed is applied to Narāçaṁsa, which would seem to identify him with Viçvarūpa, son of Tvaṣṭṛ, who, like Bṛhaspati, is in his opinion the moon as the home of the Fathers. The conjecture, however, is too bold, and rests upon the mistaken identification of Bṛhaspati and the moon, and the still less plausible version of Viçvarūpa as the moon. It necessitates also the making of the word to mean ‘he who praises men’, applicable to a judge of the Fathers, instead of ‘praise of men’ in the sense ‘praised by men’, which is the more natural sense.⁸ The comparison of the Avestan Nairyosaṅha leads to no further conclusion : traces of connexion with the Fathers are seen by Hillebrandt, but they are very faint, and his chief certain characteristic is that of messenger, which makes him merely a normal form of Agni. It is impossible, therefore, to say more than that Narāçaṁsa is a form of Agni: Bergaigne¹ thinks that he is specifically a god of prayer like Bṛhaspati, and this accords with the identification of the two gods which seems certainly intended by the Vedic poets.

v1.c18.s2.24

¹ Narāçaṁsa occurs in RV. ii. 3; v. 5; vii. 2; x. 70; Tanūnapāt, i. 188; iii. 4; ix. 5; x. 110; both, i. 13 and 142.

v1.c18.s2.25

² RV. x. 110.

v1.c18.s2.26

³ AB. ii. 24. 3; ApÇS. xii. 25. 25–27.

v1.c18.s2.27

⁴ x. 57. 3.

v1.c18.s2.28

⁵ RV. i. 18; x. 182.

v1.c18.s2.29

⁶ *Ved. Myth.* ii. 98 ff.; iii. 445–50; (Kl. Ausg.), pp. 58 ff. He quotes RV. i. 95. 1; 96. 5; x. 88. 6 as proofs of Agni as the moon, also Indrāgnī as deity of the new moon (sun and moon), but implausibly. For spirit connexion with the moon he cites RV. x. 90. 13; AA. ii. 4. 1; BAU. i. 3. 17; iii. 2. 13.

v1.c18.s2.30

⁷ MS. iv. 13. 8; TB. iii. 6. 13. Oldenberg (GN. 1915, p. 222) suggests a possible reference to Narāçaṁsa’s partaking of the three Savanas daily, duplicated by the twin offices of Hotṛ and Udgātṛ (i. 185. 9).

v1.c18.s2.31

⁸ Macdonell, *Ved. Myth.*, p. 100. The alternative is to regard the praise as deified. Cf. Oldenberg, GN. 1915, pp. 210–24. RV. x. 57. 3 on this view alludes to the Fathers as authors of praises. But his denial of connexion with fire is implausible, in view of RV. iii. 29. 11; VS. xxvii. 13, &c., and the parallel of Nairyosaṅha (cf. Gray, *Archiv für Rel.* iii. 48; Güntert, *Weltkönig*, p. 287).

v1.c18.s2.32

¹ *Rel. Véd.* i. 305-8.

v1.c18.s2.33

Tanūnapāt is even more obscure than Narāçaṁsa. His name means either ‘son of his self’, a reference to the fact that Agni generates Agni, fire being *sui generis*, or ‘own son’, i. e. of the divine father as suggested by Bergaigne.² He is contrasted with Narāçaṁsa and Mātariçvan as the divine embryo. The dawns kiss Agni, the Tanūnapāt of the ruddy one. He takes the sacrifice to the gods: Varuṇa, Mitra, Agni honour him thrice a day. Who is meant is impossible to say: Hillebrandt,³ who once identified him with Agni as a guardian of the Soma and as lunar fire, has abandoned⁴ the suggestion: in the Brāhmaṇas he is variously identified with summer and Indra, while in the ritual he plays a part only in the Tānūnaptra ceremony in which the patron and the celebrants of the rite engage not to injure one another: in this rite he serves, it seems, as the god who watches over the fulfilment of the mutual oaths of fidelity.

v1.c18.s2.34

² *Op. cit.* ii. 99. An implausible suggestion to assimilate Tanūnapāt to Narāçaṁsa as praise, as incorporating the ancestral poetry, is made by Oldenberg, GN. 1915, p. 214, n. 4.

v1.c18.s2.35

³ *Ved. Myth.* i. 339.

v1.c18.s2.36

⁴ *Op. cit.* ii. 110-12.

v1.c18.s2.37

Closely connected with Agni are other figures: the gods Mātariçvan, Ahi Budhnya, Aja Ekapād are in some degree associated with him, and the priestly families of the Atharvans, Bhṛgus, and Aṅgirases are closely related to him: they will be considered later together with the other families of priests, to whom they are perhaps more closely related in origin than to the god himself.

Linked texts (12)