Agni the Purohit

 Seven Years back when I was too much involved with physics, I felt shortage of truth. That truth which is universal in nature and solution for every problem. Often, people who never thought for once importance of truth in life, discouraged for impossible task I am taking, or dreaming to take. In this search I turned towards Vedas forgetting everything. Very divinely being Vibek as always helped me to get in touch with spiritual books. He introduced me to the writings of Sri Aurobindo. 

The first line I read in the translation of Rig Veda, by Max Muller was about Agni. I was excited about it as the fire, a pure form of energy which yields light. Light was my primary concern then. But the book write too many things which are either absurd or foolish. It become no help of mine then. I thought then that, it must be a translation problem. As I didnt know about Sanskrit, the original text is beyond my ability to read. Years later, I read Hymns to Agni by Sri Aurobindo. Earlier, I had read The Secret of Veda by him, where he gave psychological meaning to the Agni. As far as I understand, it is will power which the Agni named to according to him. 

Recently, I read the work of Sigmund Freud, on fire mythology of Mongolian, which in a sense make agni equal to Shiva Lingas or oriented in that way. 

From, above it is now, Agni is not that absurd as it was 7 years ago for me. Also, it is not physical fire too, it is just the analogy, to which Rishis best tried to fit. May be, it gives easier to think in terms of images, may be it is easier to hide the actual meaning or higher truth by making persona of something visibile. 

One morning I was happened to day dream about Agni, and translation of Sri Aurobindo, hymns to agni. Few characteristics  or factors that amazed me are:

1. Rig Vedas Mandala always get started with agni followed by Indra then other gods and carefully Sarswati being present. Agni is said to invite rest of gods.

2. Agni is praised for being able to increase in its own house. Which is quite contradictory to physics of light, as light start to emit, the source got vanished.

3. Agni is praised as father of father, or son born to father which become father to the father. Physical fire can be seen in a way that, fire burnt down its source, but there is already fire, hence this argument is not feasible.

4. Agni is praised as provider of wealth. In engineering the fire is used to make new machines, is this what they want to say? By fire alone wealth can be generated. Then it will be too clumsy argument to fit anything anywhere.

Only thing or idea that seem to fit above factors, for me, is intelligence. Rest one can give analogy to fire as burning intelligence in human mind.