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Dhammapada · narration sample

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Rig Veda · 842 of 1027

Mandala 10: HYMN V. Agni.

1.HE only is the Sea, holder of treasures: born many a time he views the hearts within us. He hides him in the secret couple’s bosom. The Bird dwells in the middle of the fountain.

2.Inhabiting one dwelling-place in common, strong Stallions and the Mares have come together. The sages guard the seat of Holy Order, and keep the highest names concealed within them.

3.The Holy Pair, of wondrous power, have coupled: they formed the Infant, they who bred produced him. The central point of all that moves and moves not, the while they wove the Sage’s thread with insight

4.For tracks of Order and refreshing viands attend from ancient times the goodly Infant. Wearing him as a mantle, Earth and Heaven grow strong by food of pleasant drink and fatness.

5.He, calling loudly to the Seven red Sisters, hath, skilled in sweet drink, brought them to be looked on. He, born of old, in middle air hath halted, and sought and found the covering robe of Pūṣan.

6.Seven are the pathways which the wise have fashioned; to one of these may come the troubled mortal. He standeth in the dwelling of the Highest, a Pillar, on sure ground where paths are parted.

7.Not Being, Being in the highest heaven, in Aditi’s bosom and in Dakṣa’s birthplace, Is Agni, our first-born of Holy Order, the Milch-cow and the Bull in life’s beginning.

Asked of Guide

Why is Agni described as born of a Holy Pair and also as 'Not Being, Being'?

The chapter names a creative couple—“the Holy Pair”—who “formed the Infant” that is Agni; this frames Agni as a produced, living force tied to cosmic order and nourishment, the source of food and the “mantle” that makes Earth and Heaven thrive. The hymn also treats Agni as a liminal principle: he is manifest as the pillar that “standeth in the dwelling of the Highest” while simultaneously being identified with the transcendent source in Aditi and Dakṣa, which portrays him as both immanent agent and origin.

Calling him “Not Being, Being” signals a Vedic way of naming the ultimate that eludes ordinary categories—Agni is presence that exceeds simple existence yet makes existence possible. That language echoes later Upaniṣadic moves (compare the Brihadaranyaka and Chandogya Upanishads) where the sacred is described as beyond being and the ground of being at once.

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