Agnihotra (IAST: Agnihotra, Devnagari: à ¤ à ¤Âà ¥Âà ¤¨à ¤¿à ¤¹à ¥Âà ¤¤à ¥Âà ¤°) refers to the yajna of offering ghee into the sacred fire as per strict rites, and may include twice-daily heated milk offering made by those in the à Ârauta tradition. The ritual has been described by P.E. Dumont as a "fertility charm", and as a "solar charm" which symbolically preserved and created the sun at nightfall and sunrise.
This tradition dates back to the Vedic age; the Brahmans perform the Agnihotra ritual chanting the verses from the Rigveda. It is part of a pan-Indo-Iranian heritage, which includes the related Iranian fire-worship ritual called Zoroastrian Yasna Haptaà ÂhÃÂiti ritual mentioned in the Old Avestan. In the historical Vedic religion, Agnihotra was the simplest public rite, and the head of every Brahmin and Vaishya family was required to conduct it twice daily. It was already popular in India with Upaniá¹£ads as religious performance. The tradition is now practiced in many parts of South Asia in the Indian sub-continent, including primarily India and also in Nepal. The Brahmin who performs the Agnihotra ritual is called an Agnihotri.
The ritual is conducted twice daily, right before or after sunrise and after sunset or the appearance of the first night star. The morning and evening agnihotras differ by the mantras and chants made by the officiants. At least four people take part in the sacrifice: the sacrificer, who hires priests to perform the ceremony (Brahmin), his wife, an Adhvaryu () and a milker.
Vedic rituals are typically performed by four priests: the aforementioned adhvaryu, who is responsible for the physical details of the sacrifice and chants the Yajurveda, a hotá¹ () who recites the Rigveda, an udgÃÂtá¹ () who sings hymns of the Samaveda, and a brahman () who supervises the ceremony, and recites the Atharvaveda while correcting any errors that may occur. There are three fires: an eastern offertorial fire called an ÃÂhavanëya () lit in a square fire pit, a western fire called the gÃÂrhapatya () lit in a circular fire pit, which represents the householder's fire, and a southern fire simply called the daká¹£iá¹ÂÃÂgni (Southern fire) (). During the ceremonies, a ritual poker, pot (), a spoon (), and ladle () are all used. At the centre of the ritual space is an earthen altar () where the tools to perform the ritual are placed.
The most common offering in the Agnihotra ritual is milk. The KÃÂtyÃÂyana à Ârautasà «tra advises devotees to sacrifice with milk to obtain cattle or a position in heaven. Alternative offerings for different goals are also recommended: the acquisition of a village with rice gruel, strength with plain rice grains, refined senses with curds, and "sharpness" or "spirit" () with ghee. Performance of the Agnihotra as a purely ritual obligation is known as nitya (), while performance with a special purpose is called kÃÂmya. ()
When the sacrificial area has been cleaned and the sacrificial fire lit, a cow is brought to the grounds and the milker, an ÃÂÃÂrya and not a à Âà «dra, recites mantras before it, then brings the calf to the right side of its mother before beginning the milking. The milk is kept in the agnihotrasthÃÂlë, which can also only be made by an ÃÂÃÂrya.
When the milking is complete, the adhvaryu pours water around the three fires, before boiling the collected milk on coals collected from the gÃÂrhapatya. The adhvaryu draws milk into the ladle, pouring it first onto the ÃÂhavaná¿Âya twice: first while reciting mantras, and the second silently as an offering to Prajapati. The mantra for offering the milk during the evening is "Agni is the light. The light is Agni, svaha". (). In the morning, Surya is substituted for Agni: ().
When the libations are complete, the ladle is cleaned with Darbha grass and refilled with water. It is then heated on the ÃÂhavanëya as additional mantras are recited, and poured onto the altar as an additional libation. In certain versions of the ritual (but not that contained in the Tattirëya Brahmana), this is followed by a blade of grass being offered to the ÃÂhavanëya. When the ceremony is complete, the adhvaryu sips some of the leftover water, recites the mantra "From Rta I have found Satya" and pours water on his head.
The BrÃÂhmaá¹Âas give several explanations for the origin of the agnihotra. In one, Prajapati creates Agni, and then offers the sweat of his brow (which became ghee) or his eye after hearing his voice commanding himself to sacrifice, creating Surya. The origin of the exclamation svÃÂhÃÂ, said as offerings are made into the sacrificial fire, is explained as a combination of svà(own) and ÃÂha (spoken). In another, the agnihotra is a condensed version of a thousand-year sacrifice Prajapati and the other devas performed to gain divine power.
Witzel (1992) locates the first Agnishala hypothetically at Jhul (MÃÂtÃÂtërtha), in the western ridge of the Kathmandu valley and later at the southern rim of the palace of Aá¹Âà Âuvermàat Hadigaon, Kathmandu. The first source of inscription evidence was from Tachapal tole, east part of Bhaktapur city, also shown by a legend that the Maithila King Harisimhadeva would establish the yantra of Taleju BhavÃÂnë in the house of an Agnihotri. From 1600 CE onward, the Agnihotra has been attested to the Agnishala temple in Patan only.
The Agnihotra ritual in Nepal has been first recorded in an inscription of King Anandadeva in c. 1140 CE that mentions of the initiations of his two sons, viz. Yasho Malla and prince Somesvara at Agnimatha (or Agnishala in Lalitpur). The temple of Agnishala since the 12th century maintains the Vedic tradition of Agnihotra fire sacrifice ritual and despite having undergone many ritual changes, the basic Vedic performance is still intact. The Agnishala is maintained by the Newar Rajopadhyaya Brahmins of Patan, who are the premier Krishna Yajurvedic Brahmins of Nepal.
Along with these, there are other Agnishalas identified and recently revived, viz.
Arya Samaj is a religious reform movement founded in 1875 advocating a return to Vedic religion as interpreted by its founder, Dayananda Saraswati. Strongly criticizing the "Puranic" ritual of performing pujas to murtis (religious images such as statues), adherents perform a variation of agnihotra as part of the five yajnas as described in Vedic texts.
A simplified variant of the agnihotra ceremony was popularized in the mid-1900s by Gajanan Maharaj, and entails the offering of ghee and brown rice into only a single fire lit in a copper pyramid-shaped brazier with cow dung and additional amounts of ghee. Mantras are repeated during this process. Practitioners claim a number of physical and environmental benefits from performing the ritual. However, these have not been empirically verified in controlled experiments and are thus pseudoscientific: in 2007, Sylvia Kratz and Ewald Schaung found that while Agnihotra ash possibly increased the amount of phosphorus in soil, levels were the same regardless of whether the ceremony was done at the prescribed times with mantras or not. The composition of the pyramids was found to be a factor, with ash from iron pyramids containing significantly less phosphorus than that from copper equivalents.
Like the Vedic Agnihotra, the modern version of Agnihotra perpetuated by Gajanan Maharaj and groups such as Homa Therapy has two variants, one for the evening and one for the morning. At sunset, the practitioner says "Agnaye svÃÂhàidam Agnaye na mama" (Devanagari: à ¤ à ¤Âà ¥Âà ¤¨à ¤¯à ¥ à ¤¸à ¥Âà ¤µà ¤¾à ¤¹à ¤¾ à ¤Âà ¤¦à ¤®à ¥ à ¤ à ¤Âà ¥Âà ¤¨à ¤¯à ¥ à ¤¨ à ¤®à ¤®), offering the first half of the rice or ghee into the fire after "svÃÂhÃÂ" is spoken. After the first mantra is said, the practitioner then says, "PrajÃÂpataye svÃÂhàPrajÃÂpataye idam na mama" (Devanagari: à ¤ªà ¥Âà ¤°à ¤Âà ¤¾à ¤ªà ¤¤à ¤¯à ¥ à ¤¸à ¥Âà ¤µà ¤¾à ¤¹à ¤¾ à ¤ªà ¥Âà ¤°à ¤Âà ¤¾à ¤ªà ¤¤à ¤¯à ¥ à ¤Âà ¤¦à ¤®à ¥ à ¤¨ à ¤®à ¤®), again offering a second portion of rice and/or ghee as soon as "svÃÂhÃÂ" is spoken. The morning Agnihotra is identical, save for the fact that Surya is substituted for Agni.
In the North Malabar region of Kerala, the ritual known as Agnihomam represents an ancient indigenous variation of fire-based initiation practiced by the Thiyyar community. Unlike the standard Vedic Agnihotra, which primarily involves daily oblations into a consecrated fire, the Agnihomam is a one-time, rigorous rite of passage that transitions a warrior (Chekon) into a divine or semi-divine status (Divyan).
The term Thiyyar is traditionally linked to the Sanskrit term Veetihotra, meaning "Fire God" or "one who has completed the fire rite." Locally, it is interpreted as "those who have worn the fire" (Thee-ye-dharichavar). While colonial historians such as Hermann Gundert proposed a derivation from Dweepu (island), this is contested by regional scholars who view the Agnihomam ritual as the primary historical basis for the community's name and identity.
The ritual is described as a "fire bath" (Agni-Snanam), consisting of three distinct phases:
Following the completion of Agnihomam, the initiate is granted the Poonool (sacred thread), Yogapattam, and Mudra by the Yogeeswarans. This conferment bears structural similarities to the Navjote ceremony in Zoroastrianism, where the Kusti thread is awarded as a symbol of spiritual responsibility. Historians note that this ritual historically elevated the initiate to a social and spiritual status that functioned outside the traditional caste hierarchy of Kerala..