The Secret Of The Veda Aurobindo - HolyBooks.com

Agni, the Divine Will-Force
THE NAME of this flaming godhead, Agni, derives from
a root whose quality of significance is a preeminent force
or intensity whether in state, action, sensation or movement;
but the qualities of this essential significance vary. It
means a burning brightness, whence its use for fire; it means
movement and especially a curving or serpentine movement; it
means strength and force, beauty and splendour, leading and
preeminence; it developed also certain emotional values which
have perished in Sanskrit, but remain in Greek, angry passion
on one side, on the other delight and love.
The Vedic deity Agni is the first of the Powers, the pristine
and preeminent, that have issued from the vast and secret
Godhead. By conscious force of the Godhead the worlds have
been created and are governed from within by that hidden and
inner Control; Agni is the form, the fire, the forceful heat and
flaming will of this Divinity. As a flaming Force of knowledge
he descends to build up the worlds and seated within them, a
secret deity, initiates movement and action. This divine Conscious
Force contains all the other godheads in itself as the nave
of a wheel contains its spokes. All puissance of action, strength
in the being, beauty of form, splendour of light and knowledge,
glory and greatness are the manifestation of Agni. And when
he is entirely delivered and fulfilled out of the envelope of the
world’s crookednesses, this deity of flame and force is revealed
as the solar godhead of love and harmony and light, Mitra, who
leads men towards the Truth.
But in the Vedic cosmos Agni appears first as a front of divine
Force compact of burning heat and light which forms, assails,
enters into, envelops, devours, rebuilds all things in Matter. He
is no random fire; his is a flame of force instinct with the light of
divine knowledge. Agni is the seer-will in the universe unerring