Vedic Mythology c5.s3.t2.24

c5.s3.t2.24

The third form of Agni is once spoken of as the highest (I0, I³; cp. 5, 3³; I, 722·4). Yāska (Nir. 7, 28) mentions that his predecessor Śākapūṇi regarded the threefold existence of Agni referred to in I0, 88I0 as being in earth, air, and heaven, a certain Brāhmaṇa considering Agni's third manifestation, which is in heaven, to be the sun (cp. Nir. I2, I9). This threefold nature of Agni, so clearly recognised in the RV., was probably the prototype not only of the posterior triad of Sun, Wind, Fire (8, I8I9), which is spoken of as distributed in the three worlds (I0, I58I; AV. 4, 39²) and is implied in another verse (I, I64⁴⁴), but also of the triad of Sun, Indra, Fire, which though not Rigvedic is still ancient. Here Vāta or Vāyu and Indra have taken the place of Agni Vaidyuta, the lightning Agni, as the Brāhmaṇas and commentators call him. This substitution is perhaps partly due to the transient nature of lightning and partly to the lack of any name other than Agni for the personified lightning, which could therefore be expressed only by epithets or allusions. The triad of Agnis may have suggested and would explain the division of the sacrificial fire into the three sacrificial fires²⁵ which in the Vedic ritual are kept distinct from the domestic fire²⁶ and which form an essential feature of the cult in the Brāhmaṇas²⁷. The ritual may have then reacted on the myth. At any rate, later Hindu literature took the three fires as representative of the three forms of Agni known to the RV.²⁸ The three sacrificial fires may go back to the time of the RV., possibly even to an anterior period²⁹. Thus Agni is besought to bring the gods and to seat himself in the three receptacles (*yoniṣu*: 2, 36⁴, cp. 5, 11²; 10, 105⁹).