8-t
HISTORY OF INDIA.
[Book IV,
A.D. —
Other Hin- doo deities.
Agiii.
to be little more than repetitions of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, under new names and forms. According to this view, the infinite multiplicity of gods disappears, and instead of hundreds of millions, only a few great names stand forth as repre- sentatives of the whole. However correct this view may be as a theory, there is too much reason to fear that it does not hold true in practice, and that in the opinion of the great mass of Hindoos everything in the shape of a god to which a name has been given, and any act of worship is paid, has a separate and inde- pendent existence. It is necessary, therefore, to go beyond the triad and to give some account of other deities, who could not witliout straining be included under it, and yet either from the nature of the worship paid to them, or tlie number of their worshippers, cannot be left unnoticed. In the list of such gods,
the two first places unquestionably belong to Agni, the god of fire, and Indra, the god of the firmament.
Agni is perhaps entitled, in so far as antiquity gives precedence, to stand at the head of all the gods of the Hindoo pantheon. In the first four books of the Rig Veda — the portion of it now made accessible to English readers by the ad- mirable labours of Professor Wilson — while the name of Siva is not once mentioned, and only two of the hymns of which the body of the work consists are addressed to Vishnu, no fewer than 147 are ad- dressed to Agni. His domain embraces the heavens, where he appears in the sun and other celestial bodies as the great source of light and heat ; the air, where he flashes in lightning and speaks in thunder; and the eartli, where his presence is recognized in all kinds of artificial fire employed for common and sacred purposes. From the frequent use of fire in the religious services of the Hindoos, the worship of Agni may be said to be universal throughout India. All Brahmins fuLfilhng the obligations of their class are Agnihotras, that is, have a consecrated fire which is never allowed to be extinguished ; and though, from the general laxity which now prevails, tlie great majority fail to do so, Agni must, so long as Hindooism continues to exist, be one of its most influential divinities. Though vv^orshipped chiefly as an element possessed of the highest efficacy in removing all kinds of impurity, moral as weU as ceremonial, he is also personified in various forms. Most usually he is di'awn with a forked representation of fii'e issuing from his mouth ; but this is sometimes wanting, and he is figm^ed as a mitred prince, seated on a ram, which he guides by one of liis four hands, while in the other three he holds a spear, a lotus flower, and a chaplet of beads.
Agni. — From Moorea Hindoo Pantheon.
