The part played by fire in the life of a Hindoo is a remarkable one, and shews the immense extent to which this form of worship has prevailed and still prevails in some countries. In the man’s earliest days—in his childhood—at the ceremony called the investiture of the thread, fire is kindled from the droppings of the sacred cow, sprinkled with holy water and blessed. Then are brought to it various offerings of grain, butter, &c., by the worshippers who are supplicating blessings, the officiating priest all the while reading passages from the sacred books. The child’s father and mother pray to Agni (Fire) that its past sins may be forgiven, having been done in ignorance; then they declare him to be of an age to know good and evil—he is between seven and nine. The sacred thread is then, after being duly washed and held over the fire, placed around the child’s neck, constituting him a Brahm Achari—one sworn to practise the laws and behests of Brahm or Almighty God. Dubois, in Mœurs des Indes, says—“A pious father will then say privately to his child, ‘Remember, my son, there is but one God, the Sovereign Master and Principle of all things, and every Brahman is bound to worship him in secret.’”
A fortnight afterwards, a kind of confirmation ceremony takes place, again before the fire, in which the parents promise that they will see that he gets married and leads a good life.
Marriage is the principal feature in a Hindoo’s life, and this, as most people know, takes place very early and is attended with many important ceremonies.
Here, again, fire is conspicuous as an object of worship, the ceremony before it—the God Agni—being the last and most serious of all. With clothes tied together, bride and bridegroom parade round about the deity casting to him their offerings which now “symbolise,” says Forlong, “the sacrifice of all their virgin modesty to the god, as the emblem of sexual fire.” The final oath of mutual love and faith is then taken in an address to the fire, and the pair, who are mere boy and girl, are duly married.
A little further on when the period arrives for cohabitation, the fourth ceremony is then gone through, fire again being adored and sacrifice offered.
In the final scene, when death has taken possession of the body, fire is again called into requisition; it is carried before the corpse by the nearest relatives, and ultimately reduces the inanimate form to its original dust and ashes.
Forlong says—“Fire enters into every duty of a Hindoo’s life. Before partaking of his morning meal he utters incantations to Agni, offers to him portions of that meal; and in like manner, before he wears a new cloth or garment, he must take some threads or parts of it and offer these to the same deity.”
“It is from the rubbing together of the wood of trees, notably of the three Banian figs—Peepal, Bar, and Gooler, the favourite woods for Phallic images, that holy fire is drawn from heaven, and before all these species do women crave their desires from God.”
“Cave and fire rites are not yet extirpated from Jerusalem, nor, indeed, from any nation of the earth. Christians still rush for sacred fire to the holy cave at the birth of Sol, and men and women strive, in secret nooks, to pass naked through holy fire.”
“Syrians, as well as all other nations, connected the Serpent with Fire. Thus the Jews had their fire altars, on which the holy flame must be ever burning and never go out; and they carried about a serpent on a pole as their healer. So also the writer of the Acts of the Apostles speaks of the Christian Holy Ghost as having serpent-like ‘cloven tongues of fire,’ which the margin of orthodox Bibles very properly connects with Isaiah’s Seraphim.”