O, Agni! whatsoe'er the rite
That thou surround'st on every side,
That sacrifice attains the gods.
May Agni, who oblation gives—
The wisest, true, most famous priest—
This god with (all) the gods approach I
Thou doest good to every man
That serves thee, Agni; even this
Is thy true virtue, Angiras.
To thee, O Agni, day by day,
Do we with prayer at eve and dawn,
Come, bringing lowly reverence;
To thee, the lord of sacrifice,
And shining guardian of the rite,[5]
In thine own dwelling magnified.
As if a father to his son,
Be easy of access to us,
And lead us onward to our weal.
This is mechanical enough to have been made for an established ritual, as doubtless it was. But it is significant that the ritualistic gods are such that to give their true character hymns of this sort must be cited. Such is not the case with the older gods of the pantheon. Ritualistic as it is, however, it is simple. Over against it may be set the following (vi. 8): "Now will I praise the strength of the variegated red bull (Agni), the feasts of the Knower-of-beings[6] (Agni); to Agni, the friend of all men, is poured out a new song, sweet to him as clear soma. As soon as he was born in highest heaven, Agni began to protect laws, for he is a guardian of law (or order). Great in strength, he, the friend of all men, measured out the space between heaven and earth, and in greatness touched the zenith; he, the marvellous friend, placed apart heaven and earth; with light removed darkness; separated the two worlds like skins. Friend of all men, he took all might to himself…. In the waters' lap the mighty ones (gods) took him, and people established him king. M[=a]tariçvan, messenger of the all-shining one, bore him from afar, friend of all men. Age by age, O Agni, give to poets new glorious wealth for feasts. O ever-youthful king, as if with a ploughshare, rend the sinner; destroy him with thy flame, like a tree! But among our lords bring, O Agni, power unbent, endless strength of heroes; and may we, through thy assistance, conquer wealth an hundredfold, a thousandfold, O Agni, thou friend of all; with thy sure protection protect our royal lords, O helper, thou who hast three habitations; guard for us the host of them that have been generous, and let them live on, friend of all, now that thou art lauded."
Aryan, as Kuhn[7] has shown, is at least the conception if not the particular form of the legend alluded to in this hymn, of fire brought from the sky to earth, which Promethean act is attributed elsewhere to the fire-priest.[8] Agni is here Mitra, the friend, as sun-god, and as such takes all the celestials' activities on himself. Like Indra he also gives personal strength: "Fair is thy face, O Agni, to the mortal that desires strength;—they whom thou dost assist overcome their enemies all their lives" (vi. 16. 25, 27). Agni is drawn down to earth by means of the twirling-sticks, one the father, one the mother[9]. "The bountiful wood bore the fair variegated son of waters and plants;[10] the gods united in mind, and payed homage to the glorious mighty child when he was born" (iii. 1. 13). As the son of waters, Agni loves wood but retreats to water, and he is so identified with Indra that he 'thunders' and 'gives rain' (as lightning; ii. 6. 5; iii. 9. 2).
The deeper significance of Agni-worship is found not alone in the fact that he is the god in whom are the other gods, nor in that he is the sun alone, but that "I am Agni, immortality is in my mouth; threefold my light, eternal fire, my name the oblation (fire)," iii. 26. 7. He is felt as a mysterious trinity. As a sun he lights earth; and gives life, sustenance, children, and wealth (iii. 3. 7); as lightning he destroys, as fire he befriends; like Indra he gives victory (iii. 16. 1); like Varuna he releases the bonds of sin; he is Varuna's brother (v. 2. 7; vi. 3. 1; iv. 1. 2); his 'many names' are often alluded to (iii. 20. 3, and above). The ritualistic interpretation of the priest is that the sun is only a sacrificial fire above lighted by the gods as soon as the corresponding fire is lighted on earth by men (vi. 2. 3). He is all threefold; three his tongues, his births, his places; thrice led about the sacrifice given thrice a day (iii. 2. 9; 17. 1; 20. 2; iv, 15. 2; 1. 7; 12. 1). He is the upholder of the religious order, the guest of mortals, found by the gods in the heavenly waters; he is near and dear; but he also becomes dreadful to the foe (iii. 1. 3-6; 6. 5; vi. 7. 1; 8. 2; iii. 1. 23; 22. 5; vi. 3. 7; iii. 18. 1; iv. 4. 4; 1. 6).
It is easy to see that in such a conception of a triune god, who is fearful yet kind, whose real name is unknown, while his visible manifestations are in earth, air, and heaven, whose being contains all the gods, there is an idea destined to overthrow, as it surpasses, the simpler conceptions of the naturalism that precedes it. Agni as the one divine power of creation is in fact the origin of the human race: "From thee come singers and heroes" (vi. 7. 3). The less weight is, therefore, to be laid on Bergaigne's 'fire origin of man'; it is not as simple fire, but as universal creator that Agni creates man; it is not the 'fire-principle'[11] philosophically elicited from connection of fire and water, but as god-principle, all-creative, that Agni gets this praise.