Devalok
From the epics · 2 tellings · Pan-India

Angiras takes Agni's place

Who is in it

  • Agni the fire who thinks he has been replaced
  • Angiras the sage who outshines him
  • Brihaspati born to Angiras afterwards
  • Atharvan the stand-in who finds the fire in the sea (Vana 221)

Texts: Mahabharata

The story, beat by beat

  1. Yudhishthira asks Markandeya why Angiras once carried the offerings as fire.
  2. Angiras performs an austerity that makes him outshine Agni and light the universe.
  3. Agni, away at his own austerities, is distressed by the radiance.
  4. He concludes that Brahma has made another fire and his office is lost.
  5. He approaches Angiras slowly and in fear.
  6. Angiras tells him to take his place again as the fire of the universe.
  7. Agni says his name is ruined and offers to be the second fire.
  8. Angiras refuses and asks to be made Agni's first child.
  9. Agni resumes his place; Angiras has a son, Brihaspati.
  10. The gods ask about it and accept Angiras's explanation.

austerity rivalry humility adoption hiding

How it is told, place by place

Base telling · Primary text (translation)

Mahabharata, Vana Parva 216-217 (Markandeya)

Pan-India All traditions

While Agni is away performing penance, the austerities of Angiras make him brighter than fire, and he lights and heats the universe. Agni believes Brahma has replaced him and comes to the sage in fear. Angiras urges him to resume his place; Agni offers to serve as the second fire; Angiras insists and asks only to be made Agni's first child. Agni agrees. Brihaspati is born to Angiras, and the fires of the ritual are then listed as their descendants.

The Mahabharata, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883-96), sections read for the Vedic layer § vana.216-217

Primary text (translation)

Mahabharata, Vana Parva 221 (Atharvan)

Pan-India All traditions

The first fire hides in the sea to avoid the fire that burns the dead. He asks Atharvan to carry the oblations. Fish reveal him and are cursed to be food for all. He abandons his body in the earth, where it becomes deodar, iron, emerald, coral and other substances. Roused by the penance of Bhrigu and Angiras he blazes, sees Atharvan and hides again in water. Atharvan searches the whole sea and brings him back.

What is different here:

The stand-in is Atharvan and is asked directly; the motive is fear of contamination; fish are cursed; the fire's body becomes minerals; nobody is adopted.

The Mahabharata, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883-96), sections read for the Vedic layer § vana.221

Sources: The Mahabharata, tr. K. M. Ganguli (1883-96), sections read for the Vedic layer

More stories with the same people

Temple legend

The Pushkar sacrifice and Savitri's curse

Brahma kills the demon Vajranabha with his lotus-weapon.
Legend

The burning of the three cities

The gods build Shiva a cosmic chariot with Brahma as charioteer and Vishnu as the arrow to destroy the three cities of Taraka's sons; the Shaiva prelude has Vishnu send a heretical teacher to strip the cities of merit, while the Bhagavata has Vishnu as a cow and Brahma as a calf drink the demons' reviving well dry.
Origin

The birth of Kartikeya

Taraka can be killed only by a son of Shiva.
Legend

The three cities burnt with one arrow

Taraka's three sons win from Brahma three flying cities of iron, silver and gold, built by Maya.
Origin

Aditi wins the first and the last offering

Why the Soma sacrifice opens and closes with a pot of rice for Aditi: the earth, left out of the rite, confounds it until she is given a share.
Legend

The Adityas and the Angirases race to heaven

The Adityas outwit the Angirases with a same-day Soma sacrifice, make them their priests, and pay them with the sun as a white horse.
From the epics

Bhrigu curses Agni to eat everything

Bhrigu goes to bathe and leaves his pregnant wife Puloma alone.
From the epics

Svaha, Agni and the birth of Skanda

Indra, needing a general, rescues Devasena and asks Brahma for a husband fit for her.