AGNI  , the

Hindu God of Fire, second only to Indra in the power and importance attributed to him in Vedic mythology . His name is the first word of the first hymn of the Rig-veda: " Agni, I entreat, divine appointed priest of sacrifice." The sacrifices made to Agni pass to the gods, for Agni is a messenger from and to the gods; but, at the same time, he is more than a mere messenger, he is an immortal, for another hymn runs: " No god indeed, no mortal is beyond the might of thee, the mighty One . . . ." He is a god who lives among men, miraculously reborn each day by the fire-drill, by the friction of the two sticks which are regarded as his parents; he is the supreme director of religious ceremonies and duties,and even has the power of influencing the lot of man in the future world . He is worshipped under a threefold form, fire on earth, lightning• and the sun . His cult survived the metamorphosis of the ancient Vedic nature-worship into modern Hinduism, and there still are in India fire-priests (agnihotri) whose duty is to superintend his worship . The sacred fire-drill for procuring the temple-fire by friction—symbolic of Agni's daily miraculous birth—is still used . In pictorial art Agni is always represented as red, two-faced, suggesting his destructive and beneficent qualities, and with three legs and seven arms . See W . J . Wilkins, Hindu Mythology (London, 1900) ; A . A .

Macdonell, Vedic Mythology (Strassburg, 1897) .