Part 4 11724
29 The Vedic figure Apām Napāt is so ancient that there is a formal
analogue in the Iranian evidence: the Avestan figure Apąm Napå. [68] While
other thematic evidence about Apąm Napå is elusive, he is known to have the
epithet auruuat̰-aspa– ‘having swift horses’ (Yašt 19.51); [69] otherwise,
this word serves only to describe the hour– ‘sun’ (Yašt 10.90, etc.). There
is a thematic parallel in the Rig-Vedic word āśuhéman– ‘driving swift
horses’, which serves as epithet for Apām Napāt (2.31.6, 2.35.1, 7.47.2);
he is transported by horses as swift as thought itself (1.186.5).
30 In Rig-Veda 1.162, a hymn celebrating the sacrificial horse, it is
specifically Pūṣan’s goat that leads the horse to its immolation (stanzas
2-3). In fact, Pūṣan’s chariot is regularly drawn by goats (1.138.4;
6.55.3-4, 6; 6.57.3; 6.58.2); by contrast, Savitr̥’s chariot is drawn by
{100|101} horses (7.45.1; cf. 1.35.3, 5). Therefore, the ritual symbolism
of having the sacrificial goat of Pūṣan precede the sacrificial horse can
be related with mythological symbolism : just as the goat is the horse’s
guide in ritual, so also Pūṣan is Savitr̥’s guide in myth. From the
conventional association of Indic Apām Napāt and of Iranian Apąm Napå with
horses, it follows that the designation of Savitr̥ the sun-god as Apām
Napāt (1.22.6) is old enough to be a part of the shared Indo-Iranian
heritage and is due to his own solar association with horses (7.45.1); by
contrast, Pūṣan is called Apām Napāt nowhere in the Rig-Veda, presumably
because he is associated with goats, not horses. In their function as solar
psychopomps, Savitr̥ and Pūṣan may be correlates, but not so in terms of
the epithet Apām Napāt: the inherited phraseology of this expression
requires association with horses, not goats.
When it comes to the death and rebirth of man, Apām Napāt serves as a solar
model rather than solar guide. The celestial fire plunges into the waters
at sunset, only to be reborn from them at sunrise. As a parallel, the
sacrificial horse is immolated so that it may draw the chariot of the sun
come sunrise, but its guide is the goat. In the Rig-Vedic hymn to Apām
Napāt, sun and horse are parallel as they rise at dawn:
áśvasyā́tra jánimāsyá ca svàr
Rig-Veda 2.35.6
31 There [in the waters] is the birthplace of the horse and this sun.
For the function of enacting man’s rebirth after death, there is an element
missing in the figure of Apām Napāt; as the hymn composed specially for him
makes clear, Apām Napāt is Apām Napāt only in the waters and in the sky,
but on earth he becomes someone else:
só apā́ṃ nápād ánabhimlātavarṇo’
‘nyásyevehá tanvā̀ viveṣa
Rig-Veda 2.35.13
Apām Napāt, with imperishable radiance,
is at work here [on earth] with the body of another.
32 This “other” is then identified in the last stanza of the hymn as Agni
himself, in his function as sacrificial fire (2.35.15). Thus whereas Agni
is {101|102} Apām Napāt, Aparn Napāt is not Agni in all respects.
Specifically, Apām Napāt lacks one of Agni’s three aspects; he is not at
work on earth.
33 To round out this complex picture of the tripartite Agni, let us
briefly consider his first provenience. Besides the earth-born Second Agni
of the sacrificial fire and the water-born Third Agni of the sun, there is
also the sky-born First Agni of lightning (Rig-Veda 10.45.1-3; also
1.143.2, 3.2.13, 6.6.2). While the water-born Agni has two sadhástha-s
‘abodes’, Sky and Ocean, the sky-born Agni in the form of lightning can go
directly from Sky to Earth through the antárikṣa– ‘intermediate space’
(6.8.2, 10.65.2).
34 The tripartite distribution of Agni is subject to a number of
confusions. As lightning, sky-born Agni qualifies as being in the third sky
(Rig-Veda 1.143.2, etc.); yet the sky-born Agni is the first Agni, Also,
with the concept of celestial waters matching terrestrial waters (1.32.2,
12, etc.), it may seem tempting to imagine the water-born Agni as not only
the sun but also lightning; and yet, Indic ritual shows that water-born
Agni was basically incompatible with the fire of lightning: according to
the Śatapalha–Brāhmaṇa (12.4.4.4; cf. Aitareya–Brāhmaṇa 7.7), “the Agni in
the waters” must be expiated if fire from lightning has been mixed with
sacrificial fire.
35 Lightning, however, is not the only form in which Agni comes from Sky
to Earth. We are now about to see the purpose of Agni’s tripartition, which
links the mystery of afterlife with the mystery of terrestrial fire’s
origin from celestial fire. We begin with the Vedic concept of human
reproduction, where the male plants the gárbha– ‘embryo’ in the uterus of
the female: thus when Sky impregnates Earth with rainwater, the embryo is
none other than “the Agni in the waters,” and this embryo is then lodged
within the plants that grow out of the impregnated Earth (Rig-Veda 7.9.3,
8.43.9, 1.141.4, etc.). [74] One of the designations of Agni within plants
is actually apā́m gárbha– ‘embryo of the waters’ (7.9.3); one of the
designations of “plant” is óṣadhī-.
apsv àgne sádhiṣ ṭava
saúṣadhīr ánu rudhyase
Rig-Veda 8.43.9
Your station is in waters, Agni;
you grow into óṣadhī-s.
Etymologically, óṣadhī– may be interpreted as being composed of roots uṣ–
and dhā-, meaning ‘light-emplacement.’
36 The one who brought fire from the Sky to the Earth is called
Mātariśvan, messenger of Vivasvat (Rig-Veda 6.8.2; also 1.93.6, 3.2.13,
1.143.2). Elsewhere, the messenger of Vivasvat is specified as Agni himself
(1.58.1, 8.39.3, 10.21.5), and the word mātaríśvan– actually serves as
Agni’s epithet (1.96.4, 3.5.9, 3.26.2). “Though the myth of Mātariśvan is
based on the distinction between fire and a personification which produces
it, the analysis of the myth shows these two to be identical.” [76] It
remains to ask how Mātariśvan brought celestial fire to Earth: he produced
fire by friction, expressed with verb forms of the root manth– (as in
1.71.4, 1.141.3, 1.148.1, 3.9.5). In the language of the Rig-Veda, fire is
produced by the manth– ‘friction’ of fire-sticks called the aráṇi-s:
ástīdám adhimánthanam
ásti prajánanaṃ kr̥tám
etā́ṃ viśpátnīm ā́ bhara
agním manthāma pūrváthā
aráṇyor níhito jātávedā
gárbha iva súdhito garbhíṇīṣu
Rig-Veda 3.29.1-2
This is the friction-place,
birth-giving, it has been prepared;
bring the viśpátnī [mistress of the household];
As before, let us rub fire.
Agni the Jātavedas has been emplaccd in the two aráṇi-s
well-placed like the embryo in pregnant females.
37 The fire latent in the wood of the aráṇi-s is born as terrestrial
fire, and we note that the Agni-epithet Mātariśvan is etymologically
appropriate to the theme of latent fire: mātarí– ‘in the mother’ and –śvan–
‘swelling’ (from root śū– ‘swell’). Here, then, is the key to the mystery
of how the terrestrial fire of sacrifice was produced from celestial fire.
Agni descends from the Sky as an embryo in rainwater. Then lies are lodged
in the plants that grow from the impregnation of Earth with rain. Finally,
he is {103|104} rubbed out of wood, thus becoming terrestrial fire. The
link between celestial and terrestrial fire is Agni Mātariśvan, messenger
of Vivasvat. (6.8.2, etc.). K Rajaram End of part 4 11724 12724
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