Transparent and Opaque Gods 161
day at dawn so he shone forth under the auspices of former dawns at the sacrifice of many a great forefather: Bharata, or Vaclhryagva; Divodasa, or
Trasadnsyu.
After having been kindled Agni is placed upon the altar or, if we trust the testimony of the ritual texts of tho Veda, upon three 3.112811%: Fagots are now piled on, fat oblations are poured in; he waxes big; his tongues, three, or seven, shoot up; he has four eyes, or a thousand eyesmboth things mean that he is sharp-sighted ; his jaws are sharp; and his teeth shine golden, or his iron grinders clutch. Then the figure is changed: he is flame-haired, tawny—haired, tawny—bearded; his glowing head faces in all direc- tions. Ghee, or melted butter, is his food: he is therefore called gheeubacked, gheewfaced, ghee- haired. Once, even more boldly, Agni himself says, ghee is his eye. This is the point where Agni begins to take on a little more of the flesh and blood of pes- sooality upon the skeleton of his elemental qualities. For he receives the offerings neither passively nor selfishly.‘ At as late a time as that of the great Epic, the Mahabharata" he is made to say: “The ghee that is poured into my mouth, in the way pron scribed in the Veda, nourishes the Gods and the
1 Cf. Rig—Veda. 2. 36. 4.; 5. Ir. 2; I0. 105. g. 1. 7. 7.fl'mgl7fll
II
