, the Fire--which are personified but not localized or
depicted. Their attributes do not depend at all on art, not much on
local or tribal custom but chiefly on imagination and poetry, and as
this poetry was not united in one collection until a later period, a
bard was under no obligation to conform to the standards of his fellows
and probably many bards sang without knowing of one another's existence.

Such a figure as Agni or Fire--if one can call him a figure--illustrates
the fluid and intangible character of Vedic divinities. He is one of the
greatest in the Pantheon, and in some ways his godhead is strongly
marked. He blesses, protects, preserves, and inspires: he is a divine
priest and messenger between gods and men: he "knows all generations."
Yet we cannot give any definite account of him such as could be drawn up
for a Greek deity. He is not a god of fire, like Vulcan, but the Fire
itself regarded as divine. The descriptions of his appearance are not
really anthropomorphic but metaphorical imagery depicting shining,
streaming flames. The hymns tell us that he has a tawny beard and hair:
a flaming head or three heads: three tongues or seven: four eyes or a
thousand. One poem says that he faces in all directions: another that he
is footless and headless. He is called the son of Heaven and Earth, of
Tvashtri and the Waters, of the Dawn, of Indra-Vishnu. One singer says
that the gods generated him to be a light for the Aryans, another that
he is the father of the gods. This multiple origin becomes more definite
in the theory of Agni's three births: he is born on earth from the
friction of fire sticks, in the clouds as lightning, and in the highest
heavens as the Sun or celestial light. In virtue of this triple birth he
assumes a triune character: his heads, tongues, bodies and dwellings are
three, and this threefold nature has perhaps something to do with the
triads of deities which become frequent later and finally develop into
the Trimurti or Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. But there is nothing fixed or
dogmatic in this idea of Agni's three births. In other texts he is said
to have two, one in Heaven and one on Earth, and yet another turn of
fancy ascribes to him births innumerable because he is kindled on many
hearths. Some of the epithets applied to him become quasi-independent.
For instance, Agni Vaisvanara--All men's fire--and Agni Tanunapat, which
seems to mean son of himself, or fire spontaneously generated, are in