at the Center: Context and Pretext of Modern Mysticism
(Santa Barbara, Calif.: Ross-Erikson, 1976); ———,
The Ochre Robe: An Autobiography, 2d ed. (Santa Bar-
bara, Calif.: Ross-Erikson, 1980).
Aghora See AGHORI SADHUS.
Aghori sadhus
Paradoxically named, the Aghori (“non-terrible”)
SADHUS are among the most strange and frighten-
ing of all the mendicants of India. Their practice
is similarly called aghora—“non-terrible.” They
inhabit cremation grounds, where they perform
their esoteric rituals. They eat the flesh of human
corpses and smear their bodies with ashes from
human cremations. They carry begging bowls
made from human skulls (they do not beg but will
not refuse anything) and eat their food from them.
They are popularly known as evil sorcerers who
command fearsome magic powers.
The practices of the Aghoris are calculated
to outrage; they are known copraphages (eaters
of human excrement), and folklore reports their
kidnapping and sacrificing children for their out-
rageously transgressive rites. They trace their sect
to the great guru of the NATHS, GORAKHNATH; they
embody the extreme left-handed tantra (see TA N-
TRISM), which finds the divinity everywhere, and
they believe that complete release is to be found
in discovering the essence of the divinity in that
which is most horrific. They are often devotees of
the fierce aspect of the GODDESS, but also, of SHIVA.
Their origins are probably to be found in the
ancient SHAIVA cult of the Kapalikas. These sad-
hus are given a wide berth by most contemporary
Indians and are looked down upon as evil.
Further reading: R. G. Bhandarkar, Vaisnavism, Saivism
and Minor Religious Systems (Banares: Indological Book
House, 1965); N. N. Bhattacharya, The History of the
Tantric Religion (Delhi: Manohar, 1982.); Shashibhusan
Das Gupta, Obscure Religious Cults (Calcutta: Firma
KLM, 1995); Sadhus: India’s Holy Men, 3, Aghori, Liv-
ing with the Dead (videorecording)/a Bedi Films/Denis
Whyte Films Production for BBC TV, Canal Plus,
Premiere (Princeton, N.J.: Films for the Humanities
and Sciences, 1995); Robert Svoboda, Aghora: At the
Left Hand of God (Albuquerque: Brotherhood of Life,
1986).Agni
Agni, the god of fire, is one of the most central
divinities in the early Vedic tradition. There are
more hymns to Agni in the RIG VEDA, the earli-
est SANSKRIT text, than to any other divinity. Agni
is sometimes said to be the son of earth and sky.
He is also sometimes said to be the offspring of
BRAHMA. He is sometimes called the son of ADITI
and the RISHI Kashyapa. Finally, he is also some-
times called the son of the rishi Angiras.
Agni’s most important role is in the Vedic
ritual, where he is the messenger between human-
ity and the gods. He is called upon always to take
the gods to the ritual place so that they can hear
the pleas and praises of the chanters. In Vedic
poetry he is called a domestic priest, a poet, and
a sage, as though to identify him directly with the
RISHIS. There is a sense of his presence in every
home as the hearth fire, and there are a close-
ness and intimacy expressed in the Vedic poetry
with him that are lacking with many of the other
Vedic divinities. He is seen to extend protection
to humans in many ways and to grant wealth and
length of life.
Iconographically, in later times Agni is seen as
red or black in color, riding a ram. He is guard-
ian of the southeastern direction among the eight
guardians of the directions. Fire is considered one
of the five elements (PANCHA BHUTAs).Further reading: Cornelia Dimmitt and J. A. B. van
Buitenen, Classical Hindu Mythology: A Reader in the
Sanskrit Puranas (Philadelphia: Temple University Press,
1978); Alfred Hillebrandt, Vedic Mythology (Delhi: Moti-
lal Banarsidass, 1990); E. Washburn Hopkins, EpicAgni 15 J