Vedic Mythology c6.s4.3

c6.s4.3

Bṛhaspati is even directly called Aṅgiras when he drives out the cows and releases the waters with Indra (2, 23¹⁸). Otherwise in nearly all the occurrences of the word in the singular, Aṅgiras is an epithet of Agni, who is the first seer Aṅgiras (1, 31¹), the ancient Aṅgiras (10, 92¹⁵) or the oldest (1, 127²) and the most inspired (6, 11³) of the Aṅgirases. Agni is several times also called the chief Aṅgiras (1, 75² &c.). This term is, however, once or twice applied to Indra, Uṣas, and Soma. Sometimes Aṅgiras only designates an ancient priest without direct allusion to Agni, as when ‘the ancient Aṅgiras’ is mentioned in an enumeration of ancestors (1, 139⁹) or when the context shows that in the form *aṅgirasvat* the singular sense ‘like Aṅgiras’ is meant (1, 45³). In one passage (1, 31¹⁷), in which the poet exclaims, ‘O Agni, come to us as to Manus, as to Aṅgiras, o Aṅgiras’, the name designates both the ancestor and Agni.