page_title: Agni
section_title: Festivals: Holi and Diwali
hierarchical_section_title: Agni / Significance / Festivals: Holi and Diwali
caption_attribution_description: English: Holika Dahan in Maharashtra.
context_page_description: Agni is a Sanskrit word meaning fire and connotes the Vedic fire god of Hinduism. He is also the guardian deity of the southeast direction and is typically found in southeast corners of Hindu temples. In the classical cosmology of the Indian religions, Agni as fire is one of the five inert impermanent elements along with space, water, air and earth, the five combining to form the empirically perceived material existence.
  In Vedic literature, Agni is a major and oft-invoked god along with Indra and Soma. Agni is considered the mouth of the gods and goddesses and the medium that conveys offerings to them in a homa. He is conceptualized in ancient Hindu texts to exist at three levels, on earth as fire, in the atmosphere as lightning, and in the sky as the sun. This triple presence connects him as the messenger between gods and human beings in the Vedic thought. The relative importance of Agni declined in the post-Vedic era, as he was internalized and his identity evolved to metaphorically represent all transformative energy and knowledge in the Upanishads and later Hindu literature.
context_section_description: Two major festivals in Hinduism, namely Holi (festival of colors) and Diwali (festival of lights) incorporate Agni in their ritual grammar, as a symbol of divine energy. During the autumn celebrations of Diwali, traditional small fire lamps called Diya are included to mark the festivities. For Holi, Hindus burn bonfires as Holika, on the night before the spring festival. The bonfire marks god Agni, and in rural India mothers carry their babies around the fire clockwise on Holika in Agni's remembrance.
caption: Agni is a part of the ritual grammar in many Hindu festivals. Above Holika for Holi, includes Agni.[88]
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