Alberuni, in his travelogue, has drawn a word-picture of
the rites of the then India and naturally the point of sacrifices comes as a
topic of discussion. Sacrifices to the fire was a common practice and most of
the Vedas ordained it. Hindu scriptures
calls the fire omnivorous i.e. fire eats
everything. Whatever the fire eats, the fire reverts to the devas as fire comes
out from the mouth of Devas. The offerings to the fire by the Branmans are oil and different cereals like wheat ,
barley, rice etc. When the Branmans offered anything on their behalf they
chanted some texts (mantras) as prescribed in the Veda, but in case of others’
offerings they recited nothing.
There is an interesting story of fire’s becoming leprous
which the Vishnu-Dharma mentions. Hiranyaksha, a very brave and powerful ruler
of a vast realm of the land, was the man
of the class of the Daityas. His daugher’s name was Dkish. This lady of the
Daitya origin was engaged in worship for almost all the time and by dint of
Fasting and Abstinence she earned a place in heaven as reward. Dkish was
married to Mahadeva. When this newly married couple was cohabiting very long,
the fire became jealous with some fear in mind. The fire was afraid lest the
couple should procreate a fire similar to themselves. The fire determined to
defile and also to ruin them.
When Mahadeva saw the fire, he became wrathful and his
forehead was covered with sweat some of which dropped on the earth and the
earth drank it. Consequently, the earth became pregnant with Mars. Rudra the
destroyer seized a drop and threw it which scattered in the interior of the
earth, all atom like substance came into being. The fire became leprous and
felt ashamed and being confounded it entered in the lowest earth, the Patala. Devas missed the fire and they started
searching. Some animals helped in that searching.
First of all, the frog pointed the location of the fire who
then and there changed its place and took shelter in the tree “asvattha”. The
fire also cursed the frog saying that
they must have a horrid croaking and the
frog would be odious looking. After the frogs, the parrots betrayed saying
Devas about the hiding place of the fire . The parrots were cursed by the fire
that the root of their tongue would be at that place where the tip of the tongue
ought to be. The Devas , out of love,
spoke with the parrots and lightened the curse by saying that they would speak
in human dwelling and would have delicate things as food. The fire tried hard
to hide himself and fleeing from the “asvattha” tree took refuge in the tree “Sami”. This time he
was betrayed by the elephant which gave a hint to the Devas about the fire’s
concealment. The elephant is severely cursed that its tongue would turn to be
topsy-turvy. Deva’s benediction did go with the elephant that the latter would
make out man’s language and would also
be fed by them.
After a long searching Devas found the fire but fire didn’t
want to stay with Devas for his leprous shape. Finding no alternative, Devas
restored the fire to health and the disease leprosy went away. Devas took fire
back with honour and gave him a respectful position. Devas made him the
mediator between Devas and mankind. From then, man offers anything to fire and
the fire transports the parts to Devas then and there.
