Agni

Agni: the holy fire
Agni is a reference to the fire-element, as well as the devatā who carries the same. Symbolizing one of the five base elements, some scholars have equated the worship of Agni to a more pre-hindu period where the worship mainly consisted of the visible elements of the universe such as water, earth, trees, air, etc. With that, some scholars have divided the various facets of God, such as Śiva, Gaṇeśa, Agni etc. into two groups of Vedic deities and Hindu deities thinking that with time the deities have changed their form or identity, or simply new names/Gods have come into existence in the minds of the population.

However this is not the case, as the traditions of India would agree that deities of the Rig Vedic period are the same as that of today, only their names may have changed slightly. I.e. in the Rig Veda the name Iṣa is used for Iśvara/ Śiva, and the name Gaṇapati is an obvious name for Gaṇeśa. Garutman has become Garuda today, and similar different names exist.

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