The Fire That Hid in the Water

There was a time when the gods looked for fire and could not find it.

The altars were cold. Nothing that people offered on earth was reaching heaven, because the one who carried it had gone. Agni had slipped away from his work and hidden himself, and he had chosen his hiding place well. He had gone into the waters. He wrapped himself in a thick covering and lay deep down among the water plants, where no one would think to look for fire.

The gods searched in many places. It was Yama, the lord of the dead, who saw him at last: a glow far down in the dark water, shining out of his secret dwelling.

The Rigveda does not describe what happened next. It lets us listen to it. The hymn is a conversation, and the first voice is Agni's, startled.

"Which of the gods has seen me? Who found out all my forms?"

"We looked for you everywhere, Agni," the gods answered. "In the waters and in the plants. Yama saw you shining."

Then Agni told the truth, and he told it to Varuna.

"I ran away because I was afraid of the sacrifice, Varuna. I was afraid the gods would yoke me to that work. My elder brothers took that road before me. So I fled, as a wild bull flees from the hunter's bow."

That is all he says about his brothers, and it is enough. Whatever became of them, he did not want it for himself.

The gods did not argue with his fear. They made him an offer.

"Come back. People want to worship, and they are waiting. Make the paths to the gods easy to travel, and carry the offerings with a willing heart. And we give you this, Agni: a life that does not wear out. The work will not harm you."

Agni thought it over, and then he named his price.

"Then give me the first offerings and the last ones. Give me the richest part of what is offered, the strength of the plants and the fatness of the waters. And let my life be long."

"The first offerings and the last are yours," said the gods. "The whole sacrifice shall be yours. Let the four quarters bow to you."

So Agni came up out of the water.

The next hymn lets us see him take his seat. He is a little unsure of himself. He asks the gods to teach him how a priest should sit, and by which path the offering should travel. Then all the gods together honour him. The hymn counts them, three thousand, three hundred and thirty-nine. They spread the sacred grass for him, anoint him with butter and seat him as their priest.

"He has come," they say in the third hymn, "the one we were longing for."

From that day the fire on the altar has carried every offering upward, and the first and the last offerings of the old sacrifice are Agni's own share, as he was promised.

Many centuries later the Mahabharata tells of a hunt for Agni again, and this time there are witnesses.

The gods were in trouble. A demon named Taraka was tormenting them, and only Agni could father the child who would defeat him. They needed him urgently, and Agni had hidden himself so well that they searched the three worlds without finding him.

Then a frog came up out of the deep waters under the earth, scorched and miserable.

"He is down there," said the frog. "Under the waters. We cannot bear the heat."

Agni knew at once who had given him away. He cursed the whole race of frogs: from that day they would have no sense of taste. The gods, grateful, softened the blow. Frogs would still have many voices, they promised, and would live safely in their holes and go about at night.

Agni moved. This time he hid inside an ashvattha, the sacred fig tree. An elephant saw him go in.

"Agni is inside this tree," said the elephant.

So the elephants were cursed as well: their tongues would be bent backward in their mouths. The gods comforted them too. They would still be able to eat whatever they liked, and to trumpet.

Agni moved again, into a sami tree. A parrot told the gods where he was. Agni cursed the parrot to lose its power of speech, and the gods softened that as well: its speech would be sweet and unclear, like a small child's.

There the gods found him at last, in the heart of the sami tree. That is why, the epic says, the wood of the sami is used to kindle the sacred fire, and why there are hot springs in the earth where Agni once lay in the deep waters.