Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/177
day at dawn so he shone forth under the auspices of former dawns at the sacrifice of many a great forefather: Bharata, or Vadhryaçva; Divodāsa, or Trasadasyu.
After having been kindled Agni is placed upon the altar or, if we trust the testimony of the ritual texts of the Veda, upon three altars.[1] 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 eyes – both 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 directions. Ghee, or melted butter, is his food: he is therefore called ghee-backed, ghee-faced, 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 personality 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 Mahābhārata[2] he is made to say: "The ghee that is poured into my mouth, in the way prescribed in the Veda, nourishes the Gods and the