Roberto Calasso - Ardor

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Prajāpati, a lonely god, the source of all things, is certainly not an omnipotent god. But every action of his is fateful, for he is the founder — and immediately also threatens to be fateful for himself. Producing his firstborn son, Agni, from his mouth, he makes him become a mouth, forced to devour food. From then on, the earth would be a place where someone devours someone else, where fire incessantly consumes something. Agni’s appearance, therefore, from the very first moment, coincides with Death.

The first drama had thus begun, without an audience. Agni is born — and Prajāpati, deep in thought, has doubts about his son. He seems to have difficulty in understanding that, if Agni can do nothing but devour, the only being he’ll be able to devour is his father. Thus we see the first terrifying picture: “Agni turns to him with his mouth wide open.” This gaping mouth of the son, ready to devour his father, is what underlies the whole huge sacrificial construct, as if there would never be sufficient complexity and intricacy to conceal the brutality of that image. What happens afterward is a strange, mysterious process: “His greatness escaped from him [Prajāpati].” The terror had produced in the god a separation, indeed the expulsion of a power, here called “greatness.” What was this greatness? It was Speech, Vāc. A female being that lived in Prajāpati and whom terror had released from within him. And Vāc now stood before him like another being, who spoke to him.

Prajāpati knew it was essential to offer something to stop his son from devouring him. But there was no substance. Only after much rubbing of hands did Prajāpati manage to create something substantial: a liquid much like milk that was the sweat his terror had caused to pour from his skin. Offer it? Or not? At that moment a mighty voice resounded, outside of Prajāpati, and said: “Offer it!” Prajāpati obeyed — and it was then that the world’s fate was decided. As he performed the offering, he realized it was he himself who had spoken: “That voice was his own ( sva ) greatness which had spoken ( āha ) to him.” Prajāpati then gave out that sound: svāhā , the quintessential auspicious invocation that has accompanied countless offerings, up to today.

A violent, rushing scene, containing within it the first splitting of personality: if Speech had not been expelled from inside Prajāpati and had not spoken to him, nothing could have persuaded Prajāpati to perform the offering. On the other hand — and here the delicacy of the liturgist is exceptional — so long as Prajāpati, namely the one who had produced everything in the world, including the gods, remained in doubt, “he stayed firm on the better side,” inasmuch as he had caused Speech, Vāc, to come out of himself. And his unknowing saved him.

The scene lets us see the first appearance of the offering as the ultimate means for self-defense. The moment is crucial, since the world from then on will be based on the offering — on an uninterrupted chain of offerings. But another irreversible, less apparent, event had occurred in that scene. And its consequences would be of no less importance. As soon as Prajāpati formed the word svāhā for the first time, it brought self-reflection into existence. “Sva āha,” “that which is his has spoken,” implies the formation of two persons, of a first and a third person within the same mind, which is Prajāpati. All of what we call thought — but also the whole immense, nebulous, frayed extension of mental activity — established then the two poles that would support every instant of awareness. As soon as one recognizes one’s own voice in a separate being, one creates a Double in continual dialogue with the one called I. And the I itself turns out not to be the ultimate, but only the penultimate foundation for what happens in the mind. Alongside an I there will always be a Self — and as well as the Self there will always be an I. That was the moment when they split apart and recognized each other. It was only because Prajāpati’s I was gripped by uncertainty that he could then obey his Self, which spoke to him through Vāc. The ritualist doesn’t want to tell us this explicitly, but this is the nub of the doctrine. Here it appears in its remotest, rawest, most inaccessible form. As well as its decisive form. If Prajāpati had not obeyed that voice, the world would not have managed to be born. The offering was the means, the only possible means for escaping from a deadly threat. A threat for the Progenitor, long before there were people. So people must imitate him performing the agnihotra , pouring milk into the fire, every morning and every evening.

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Prajāpati was laid out and his body was one single pain. The gods approached to relieve his suffering — and perhaps to cure him. They were holding havis , offerings of vegetables, rice, barley, as well as milk, ghee, and cooked foods. With these offerings they wanted to treat Prajāpati’s loosened joints. Especially between day and night, since Prajāpati was made up of time. Hence dawn and dusk. That was the moment to act. So they established the agnihotra , the libation to be performed each day at sunrise and sunset. Then they concentrated on the phases of the moon, which also make time and its junctures visible. Finally they thought about the seasons, their beginnings, discernible and certainly painful in the body of the Progenitor.

The ritual action inevitably took place during those dangerous transitional moments when the presence of time was apparent: entering daylight and leaving it. Agnihotra thus became the most important rite, a cell that unleashed a vast energy, which invaded the totality of time.

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“Prajāpati conceived a passion for his daughter, who was either the Sky or Uṣas, the dawn:

“‘Let me couple with her!’ he thought and he coupled with her.

“This was certainly wrong in the eyes of the gods. ‘He who acts thus toward his own daughter, our sister, [does wrong],’ they thought.

“The gods then said to the god who is lord of the animals: ‘He who acts thus toward his own daughter, our sister, surely does wrong. Pierce him!’ Rudra, having taken aim, pierced him. Half of his seed fell to the ground. And thus it happened.

“In relation to this, the ṛṣi said: ‘When the Father embraced his Daughter, coupling with her, he spilled his seed on the earth.’ This became the chant called āgnimāruta : it shows how the gods made something emerge from that seed. When the anger of the gods subsided, they cured Prajāpati and removed that arrow; for Prajāpati is certainly the sacrifice.

“They said: ‘Think how all of this may not be lost and how it may be a small portion of the offering itself.’

“They said: ‘Take it to Bhaga, who is seated to the south: Bhaga will eat it as a first portion, so that it will be as if it were offered.’ So they carried it to Bhaga, who was sitting to the south. Bhaga looked at it: it burnt out his eyes. And so it was. That is why they say: ‘Bhaga is blind.’

“They said: ‘It has not yet been appeased: take it to Pūṣan.’ So they took it to Pūṣan. Pūṣan tasted it: it broke his teeth. So it was. That is why they say: ‘Pūṣan is toothless.’ And that is why, when they prepare a lump of boiled rice for Pūṣan, they prepare it with ground rice, as is done for someone toothless.

“They said: ‘It has still not been appeased here: take it to Bṛhaspati.’ So they took it to Bṛhaspati. Bṛhaspati hurried to Savitṛ, for Savitṛ is the Impeller. ‘Give impulse to this for me,’ he said. Savitṛ, as the one who gives impulse, therefore gave impulse, and having received impulse from Savitṛ, it did not harm him; that is why since then it is appeased. And this is the first portion.”