Agni, Spirit of the Sacrificial Fire. Agni, Fire, is the friend of men. When he is the lightning, to which the rain-laden cloud gives birth, he is regarded as the son of the Celestial Waters. According to other texts, he is their lover.
These variants in affiliation are characteristic of many theogonies, and especially of Hindu mythology, in which, as we have already said elsewhere, the same individual is husband, lover, or father, according to the bias of the document or the whim of the poet.
Fire being considered as the son of the Waters, it will be understood that since they contain it it falls with the rain upon the ground and is incorporated with vegetation. That it should be possible to make it spring forth by the friction of two pieces of wood is, there, for a Hindu, in the order of things. Each of two pieces-the stick and the flat slab-used to obtain fire by rotary motion bears in Sanskrit the same name, arani. This word is feminine in gender. That is why Agni, Terrestrial Fire, is sometimes called the “son-of-two-mothers.” As soon as he is born he devours them.