Agni is so important to us that when Veda Vyasa वेद व्यास organised the Veda Mantras into Rg, Yajur, Sama and Atharva, he put the Mantras of Agni first! (While chronologically mantras of the Atharva Veda are first, when Vyasa classified the mantras, he put the mantras useful for japa, ie, the Rk mantras into the Rg Veda, the first among the Vedas, not for chronology but for importance in spiritual sadhana. (Practice).)
What is Agni?
In most modern Indian languages, the word Agni or its variants mean fire.
What is fire?
Fire is a chemical reaction. Chemical reactions take place by electrons belonging to atoms re-arranging themselves. If an electron moves from a sodium atom to a chlorine atom, then the sodium atom becomes a positively charged ion and the chlorine tom becomes a negatively charged ion. Then these ions are held together by electrical forces and give us the sodium chloride we love as salt. There are many, many kinds of chemical reactions and ways in which atoms bond to make new compounds.
What we call fire, is a chemical reaction that involves oxygen. As an example take a piece of wood that has carbon and hydrogen in it. Add energy to it in the form of heat. At some point the hydrocarbons break up. Then oxygen reacts with carbon to form carbon dioxide and with hydrogen to form water vapour. But where does the “fire” – the heat and light come from? The heated up carbon (and other) atoms rising in the air start throwing off (radiating) electromagnetic energy. Lower frequencies of EM energy are heat and higher frequencies EM energy are light. Neils Bohr said that when electrons in atoms, change their energy states, electromagnetic energy is emitted or absorbed.
What is jaTara Agni?
Jataraagni is our digestive “fire”, the chemical reactions that digest our food. Krishna tells us in the Bhagavad Gita, that He becomes the vais’vAnara (universal person), enters the bodies of living things and digests the food. This does not look like a bonfire!
There is also, a legend of Agni hiding in the ocean waters, which we shall come back to at a later point in time.
Agni is associated with the movement of electrons.
As a chemical reaction in fire and digestion, as stream of moving electrons in electricity.
When electrons “jump” the “right” energy states photons can be emitted.
Sri Suktham : telling Agni to bring Sri!
In Sri Suktham, we tell Agni, the one born of Vedas (jAtavEda) to bring Lakshmi! (lakshmIm jAtavedO ma Avaha)
We have previously understood Lakshmi as light. (See links at the bottom of this page).
Now, we tell fire to go bring us light.
We tell the electrons to release photons!!
Of course, when we chant this mantram, as a Rg Vedic Mantram for japa, the light we seek is the light of illumination, when we chant this as a yajur mantram along with the araNi sticks and different Vedic Swaras we also want a physical fire to start up.
Today we light a match without any invocation and a fire starts up, or we press a switch and an electron current flows. So we don’t treat these events as sacred. We don’t see the need to entreat a match to light up, out techniques are more perfected.
But my great grandmother did and my Veda Guru does treat the switching on of a lamp or the lighting of a cooking fire as very sacred things. And there is an additional illumination that was/is reflected in their faces and eyes., because they view(ed) energy as divine, sacred and something worthy of respect!
Authorship and Copyright Notice : All Rights Reserved : Satya Sarada Kandula
- Time : Past, Present and Future : Bhuta Bhavya Bhavan Nathah Vishnuh
- Time : Why study time ? : “Kaalah Aham – I am Time” – Krishna
- Time : Kalakantha, kalamurthi, kalagni, kalanasana, Siva : Markandeya : Maghamahatmya
- Time and Space : Are Time and Space “side-effect” of matter? Is Space empty? or full of some”thing” else?
- Time, Matter, Energy and Consciousness : Kaala, Sat, Sakthi, Purusha/Devi
- Life : Pranadah, Pranah, Jivanah, Vishnuh! : What is Life? In science and sanskrit texts : Eating.
- Consciousness : Pragnya, Chitta, Purusha/Devi : in Science and Sanskrit Texts
- Time : Movement : Motion: : Jagat : Charaachara : Understanding Devi and Purusha as Movement and Time.
- Light : Lakshmi : Vishnu
- Light : Bits of Light Energy (Photons) : suvarna rajata srajaa Lakshmi : mass energy equivalence, sat sakti equivalence, advaita, sat cit ananda
- Particles : The Very Small (sukshma) and The Very Fast (vega) : Photons : Lakshmi, Devi, Sarva Chaitanya, Atman
- Time : Dreams : Precognition : Cognition : Memory : A Rambling Post.
- Fire : A chemical reaction : Agni : Electron Motion : Photon emission : Lakshmi : Sri Suktham
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