Earth and Space News: Ellora Hindu Cave 18 Appeals to Hearth and Sacrificial Fire God Agni

Summary: Ellora Hindu Cave 18 avows ancient assists of health and sacrificial fire god Agni to fertility bull Nandi and fertility god Shiva in Maharashtra, India.

location of Ellora Hindu Cave XVIII (center right) within the Brahmanical cave complex at Maharashtra's Ellora Caves; detail of "General Plan of the Elura Caves" by Scottish archaeologist James Burgess (Aug. 14, 1832-Oct. 3, 1916), Report on the Elura Cave Temples (1883), Plate II: via Internet Archive

Ellora Hindu Cave 18 admits to ancient associations of hearth and sacrificial fire god Agni to destroyer and fertility god Shiva and fertility bull mount Nandi in Maharashtra state, western peninsular India.

Itinerant artisans, merchants and monks built Ellora Hindu Cave 18 as a cave temple that bartered a fertility god's sacrificial consort for a sacrificial fire god. Their 67-foot- (20.42-meter-) long, 55-foot- (16.76-meter-) wide cave temple contains a 30-foot- (9.14-meter-) long shrine for a fertility sculpture, a fertility trough and a fire pit. Sacrificial duties demand that hearth and sacrificial fire god Agni (from Sanskrit अग्नि, "heat") devour clarified butter, not human sacrifices that a sacrifice-driven fertility consort designates.

The square trough in Ellora Hindu Cave 18 existed for the fertility bull Nandi (from Sanskrit नन्दि, "delight"), not Agni's ram (Ovis aries).

The fire pit in Ellora Hindu Cave 18 featured sacrificial fires whose clarified butter furthered fertile families and fed the seven tongues of red-bodied, three-headed Agni.

Hindu (from Sanskrit सिन्धु, "stream") mythology gives Agni roles as king of Pitri (from Sanskrit पितृ, "father") souls, purifier of sacrificial offerings and priest to god. The hearth and sacrificial fire god headed to his home pure aspects of mortal souls and had their evil impurities held within ashy, fiery residues. He inherited Pitri kingship over ancestral dead forefatherly souls from his father Angiras (from Sanskrit अङ्गिरस्, "fire"), one of seven sages and 10 progenitors of humankind.

Rising smoke from hearth fire pits and from such sacrificial fire pits as in Ellora Hindu Cave 18 joins Angiras' human progeny to Agni's fellow gods.

Iranian mythologies known through Vedic (from Sanskrit वेद, "knowledge") hymns by 800 B.C.E. perhaps kindled sacrificial fire pits such as that in Ellora Hindu Cave 18.

Iranian mythologies, perhaps left through Aryan (from Sanskrit आर्य, "noble") invasions around 1700 B.C.E. looked at Agni as mediator between, and messenger of, gods and men. Their makeover in Vedic hymns manifest Agni as smoking vehicle that moves his fellow gods to sacrificial fire pits in, for example, Ellora Hindu Cave 18. Rising smoke from any hearth fire pits of cold, hungry, thirsty itinerant artisans, merchants and monks on Ellora Hindu Cave 8 pilgrimages nurtured atmospheric, nourishing clouds.

Perhaps Vedic humns originating fire in overlapping operations of male upper and female lower fire-sticks occasion obscure sacrificial fire pits, as in Ellora Hindu Cave 18.

Perhaps Vedic hymns praising the fertility god and the fertility goddess parents of Agni prompted placing a plain sacrificial fire pit in Ellora Hindu Cave 18.

Vedic hymns queue up the Earth goddess Prithivi (from Sanskrit पृथ्वी, "earth") and the Heaven god Dyau (from Sanskrit द्यौ, "sky"), not Angiras, as Agni's parents. Hindu mythologies revere their sacrificial fire god as co-parent, with River Ganges goddess Ganga (from Sanskrit गङ्गा, "Earth-goer") of war god Karttikeya (from Sanskrit कार्तिकेय, "Pleiades"). Vedic Agni, thanks to the sage Bhrigu (from Sanskrit भृगु, "cliff"), and Hindu Agni stay pure savoring hearth and sacrificial fire pits whose impurities they neutralize.

Fertile self or fertility parents, impurity immunity, sacrificial purification and smoke signals perhaps turned the hearth and sacrificial fire god up in Ellora Hindu Cave 18.

"Plan of Cave XVIII"; sketch by Scottish archaeologist James Burgess (Aug. 14, 1832-Oct. 3, 1916), Report on the Elura Cave Temples (1883), Plate XXXII: via Internet Archive; sketch by Scottish archaeologist James Burgess (Aug. 14, 1832-Oct. 3, 1916), Report on the Elura Cave Temples (1883), Plate XXV: via Internet Archive

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

"Plan of Cave XVIII"; sketch by Scottish archaeologist James Burgess (Aug. 14, 1832-Oct. 3, 1916), Report on the Elura Cave Temples (1883), Plate XXXII: via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.1544/page/n165/mode/1up

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Earth and Space News

Friday, June 19, 2020

Ellora Hindu Cave 18 Appeals to Hearth and Sacrificial Fire God Agni

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