The importance of the Vedic practice of agnihotra

Introduction: The agnihotra (sacred fire) has been a very important part of all Vedic ceremonies since the beginning of time. The act of putting ghee (clarified butter), fire-wood, food and samagree into a specially lit fire represents the sacrifice of valuable material resources essential for human survival and contentment such as food and fuel. The ingredients of the samagree include sandalwood, dried medicinal herbs and food (such as sweet dishes cooked in the home that day or dried fruits etc; foods containing salt and/or spices are prohibited).

The composition of samagree was scientifically formulated by sages in pre-historic India to confer disinfectant and sterilising properties to the vapours produced by the fire. Effectively, it is an ancient – and organic - method of purification of the environment by fumigation. The heated air produced by the fire spreads to all places in the home or building where it is performed and so purifies the air by destroying germs as well as producing a pleasant (‘joss-stick’ type of) fragrance that replaces foul air. This explains the historic practice of havan in households in India after a funeral; the hot fragrant ‘smoke’ from the fire drives out the smell of putrefaction of the dead body through that process the modern science of physics refers to as convection.

The light from the flame of the fire is a symbol of knowledge replacing ignorance (darkness). Enlightenment of the mind is enhanced by the act of chanting mantras (verses from the Vedas – the most original religious Scriptures known to mankind) whilst the fire is fed. This form of prayer not only brings peace to the soul but its daily repetition is also an act of mental concentration that enables the mind to memorise the wisdom contained in the Vedic mantras. Furthermore, by pledging to embrace dharma and observing the law of karma, the flame symbolises the burning of any future tendency towards sinful behaviour.

It is signally not – and this cannot be emphasised enough – the worshipping of fire. Instead, it is a process for worshipping God which has the valuable side-effect of purifying the householders’ home twice daily, at sunrise and sunset, by using a strictly correct method of producing fire (the use of fossil fuels has always been strictly proscribed in this ritual from time immemorial).

The use of items such as cooking-ghee, food, samagree, firewood and water is altruistic because such valuable materials are sacrificed for the greater good of society. It acts as a reminder that human beings require only that bare quantity of materials necessary for our subsistence. In other words, performing agnihotra promotes unselfishness and doing good to the rest of the world (thereby guiding people to reject unnecessary materialism and possessive individualism). The desire to improve the environment is not just for the personal good but also for the good of all, fostering a spirit of universal good.

History: Vedic seers originally enjoined that agnihotra should be performed twice a day. It is one of the five good deeds (pancamahayajna) every householder is expected to carry out daily. Even during student life, a brahmachari was expected to do so at his/her college (gurukula). Furthermore, in the Indian tradition every marriage ceremony includes agnihotra. A newly wed couple then conduct it at home as their very first act together after the wedding. Other sanskrit names for it are devayajna, havan and homa. Perhaps a house is worth being referred to by the English word home only if homa is carried out in it daily!

Even today, life without fire is unthinkable. Almost all machines – from the cooker to the the internal combustion engine of a car - are powered by fire directly or indirectly. That great fireball we know as the sun is the primary source of energy on earth. One of the meanings of agni, the first word in the Rigveda, (the very first book in the library of mankind) is fire. Thus, fire surely was the first great scientific discovery by mankind, as facilitated by the knowledge in the Vedas.

It is truly remarkable that Vedic seers had the ingenuity to decree that agnihotra as a ritual must be repeated frequently when, intuitively, it would seem senselessly wasteful to throw away useful and valuable substances into a fire. But, the rishis of ancient India must have understood that fire has the ability to break up substances into a gaseous form and that hot gases have the buoyancy and other aerodynamic properties to cleanse air both the indoors and outdoors. They would have been aware of another principle of modern physics referred to as the Conservation of Matter: matter is neither created nor destroyed. They knew that the various materials that are put into the fire only appear to vanish, but that in reality they have been transformed into a state of vapour which is not visible.

Benefits: The worth of agnihotra is multi-dimensional. Spiritually, it has an enlightening effect on the soul because selected verses from the Vedas and other allied Vedic literature are recited during the course of agnihotra. Other than enhancing intellectual and cognitive agility, such regular recitation of so many important mantras leads to them being memorised. The logical sequel of this is the educational quest of their meaning being learned and understood. Socially, it strengthens bonds between members of a family or community because groups of people get together to carry it out communally. Hygienically, it has the effect of medicinal cleansing of air in the vicinity. Physically, agnihotra also has an uplifting effect on the material domains of human life, that is, the body and mind (memory, intellect, autonomic and sensori- motor functions). It encompasses all the meanings that are conveyed by the word yajna, a word that is derived from the sanskrit root yaj (which denotes devapuja sangatikarana danesu) and which means that yajna is

• an act that honours devas, both sentient and insentient. Air and herbs are examples of devas that are insentient in nature
• an assembly of noble souls
• an act the very essence of which is sacrifice, that is, self-denial aimed at sharing with and donating to others. Each mantra that is chanted ends with the words "idam na mama" which means this (the oblation put into the fire) is not mine. This is a reminder that all our material possessions should not be guarded jealously or possessively because, ultimately, they pass on to others. God, the Creator, is the only true ‘owner’.

Science: agnihotra merits further analysis through the use of some of the tenets of modern Combustion Science. Combustion is the oxidizing of a fuel, usually by atmospheric oxygen; it is a chemical reaction which gives rise to thermal energy. The mixing of fuel and oxygen alone does not lead to combustion. It must be initiated by a source of ignition. For example, fuel and oxygen in a car’s petrol tank fail to combust until a spark plug ignites the flicker of a flame; in the ensuing fire the heat energy inherent in the fuel is released, giving rise to an increase in temperature. Some fuels release much more energy than others. For example, typical hydrocarbon fuels such as methane, propane, gasoline and diesel have thermal energy levels in the range of 10,000 calories per gram of fuel. This measure is referred to as the Calorific Value of the fuel. Upon combustion the final temperature may rise to as much as 2500 degree Celsius.

Fuels such as cellulose materials have lower calorific values - wood being one of them. Firewood, typically, has a calorific value of around 3000 calories per gram of fuel because hydrocarbon fuels have only carbon and hydrogen atoms in their molecular structure, whereas cellulose materials additionally contain oxygen atoms within their molecular structure. As such, they are already partly oxidized; because their potential for further oxidization during combustion is reduced their burning is likely to cause maximum temperatures in the range of 800-1200 degree Celsius only.

Complete combustion leads to the formation of carbon dioxide (CO2) and water vapour. If there is a deficiency in the amount of available oxygen, some fuel remains either unburned or is only partially oxidized to carbon monoxide – a by-product that is poisonous to humans. In the event of combustion resulting in temperatures as high as 2000 degrees Celsius, nitrogen and oxygen may react with each other to form the pollutant oxides of nitrogen. It can be seen, therefore, that uncontrolled combustion leads to pollution of the atmosphere as is best-exemplified by the contemporary global concern that indiscriminate production and consumption of energy by mankind is leading to excessive levels of gases such as CO2 causing the earth to suffer the ‘greenhouse’ effect.

agnihotra allows a fire to only be generated in a specially-designed vessel built or fixed at ground level. Only firewood of certain specified characteristics is allowed to be burnt in this fire. To this base fire, additional substances such as purified butter (ghee or ghrtam) and certain dried herbs are added periodically as ritual oblations. Maharishi Dayananda Sarasvati (1824-83) stated in his seminal book Satyartha Prakasha that the herbal substances to be added into agnihotra must have the four properties of being health-promoting, germicidal, deodorising and sweetening.

The purpose of agnihotra is not to burn wood but to heat the ingredients to the specific point of temperature at which they evaporate, thereby diffusing into the surrounding air as a means of improving the air quality. Their intrinsic heat energy confers buoyancy and aerodynamic effects that cause these vaporized fumigants to permeate the entire room. Crucially, the combustion of ingredients added into the fire, such as ghee, is not polluting to the atmosphere because they pass the tests set by Vedic Science aimed at ensuring they are medicinally purifying or sterilising.

The overall result of agnihotra is that beneficial substances can be inhaled because this route is more efficient than oral ingestion by a factor of several hundred. As we know, bringing a chilli too close to the nostrils makes that one person sneeze; if the same chilli is put into a fire then scores of people in the vicinity will sneeze. Further evidence for the superiority of inhalation as a route is that modern medicine is increasingly striving to deliver drugs (such as Insulin and asthma treatments) in the form of sprays for inhalation, instead of tablets or injectable liquids. Quite simply, it is the only way of purifying indoor air that has been polluted by humans breathing. As modern man is spending increasingly more time indoors, agnihotra becomes even more relevant. In contrast, air fresheners merely try to neutralize stale air; agnihotra not only drives dirty air out for it to be replaced by outdoor fresh air diffusing in but also effectively neutralizes the stale indoor air.

As has already been explained above, burning only firewood ensures that the agnihotra fire has a 1000 degree lower temperature than that needed to produce toxic nitrous oxides. The vessel is purposefully designed to maximise the amount of oxygen that reaches the burning firewood, so that both carbon monoxide and unburned hydrocarbons are minimally released. Admittedly carbon-dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is formed. However, the Vedas prescribe that agnihotra ought to be performed during and after sunrise, and well as before sunset, in the vicinity of green plant life. Modern biological science vindicates the excellent logic of this Vedic practice, that is, the process of photosynthesis (production of starch through the chemical reaction of water and carbon-dioxide) by plants can only occur in sunlight.

Unfortunately, modern lifestyle gives rise to the formation of carbon dioxide on an industrial scale in comparison to which the amounts produced by agnihotra not only pale into insignificance but are also harmoniously in equilibrium with its consumption by plants. It is a huge irony that, unlike agnihotra, commercially available air fresheners also totally fail the modern ‘litmus test’ of not being organic in an era when aerosols and chemicals (such as hormones and fertilisers) created by the modern sciences of pharmacology and chemistry are rightly being discarded because of their deleterious effects on healthy life!

Conclusion: We should marvel that ancient Rishis truly understood the specific Vedic teaching that fire (agni) is in actual fact a devata - of an insentient type - because of its ability to benefit life on earth through its property of cyclically burning solids and liquids into useful gases. These vapours cover a, literally, widespread area that neither solids nor liquids could ever match in their breadth of penetration (from the viewpoint of both distance and number of people reached). According to the great rishi Yaska, a devata is that which is useful to life, such as light or knowledge. It can be seen, therefore, why agnihotra is accorded the status of being one of the devatas to be valued and cherished by humanity as well as why it is also referred to by the word devayajna.

If the practice of homa can be revived, through a co-ordinated mission, for it to become widespread there will be a quantum betterment of human society world-wide. The tremendous gains include improvements in the quality of air, water and food that we utilise, as well as our morality and behaviour. If the practice of Yoga can become widespread among enlightened people in the western world, it is not at all fanciful to hope and strive for a similar growth in the popularity, internationally, of performing agnihotra.