Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online

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Fire
(6,107 words)

In ancient India, the elemental fire was mostly indissociable from the deified fire Agni. Agni is likened to various animals in vedic metaphors (see below). These animals can be domesticated or wild, stressing the ambivalent nature of fire: fire is only temporarily tamed and threatens to run wild again, a trait that is p…

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Feller, Danielle, “Fire”, in: Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism Online, Editor-in-Chief Associate Editors Knut A. Jacobsen, Helene Basu, Angelika Malinar, Vasudha Narayanan. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2212-5019_BEH_COM_000371>
First published online: 2018



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