jAtavedas

Source: TW

The god agni manifests as several devatA-s in the shruti & the two main ones are agni jAtavedas & agni vaishvAnara. There are other less frequent ones like agni rakShohan, agni anIkavat & the like.

There is a certain theological complementarity between jAtavedas & vaishvAnara. agni jAtavedas is identified by the fire established at the beginning of the ritual burning unbroken through it. In the same sense he is also identified with the agni maintained through the generations by the ritualists – an old IE tradition. Hence, one may interpret jAtavedas as both: he with knowledge of the birth of the ritual in the proximal sense & he with knowledge of it in the sense of continuity from the primordial making of the fire.

In the shruti he is offered oblations at the dawn ritual; thus, he also has knowledge of the beginning of the day’s ritual. He is the local divine hotR who conveys the oblations offered in the ritual fire to the god.

His celestial counterpart is agni vaishvAnara – one common to all folks, unlike the private jAtavedas who is associated with the particular ritualist clan from the time they established the fire ritual. vaishvAnara is in contrast associated with the celestial heat. He is the universal fire from whom all other fires emerge:

vayA id agne agnayas te anye tve vishve amR^itA mAdayante | vaishvAnara nAbhir asi kShitInAM sthUNeva janAM upamid yayantha ||

He is simultaneously in the middle of the earth:

nAbhir agniH pR^ithivyA

& at the center of the celestial hemispheres:

athAbhavad aratI rodasyoH | (solar form)

& the equinoctial colure:

mUrdhA divaH

In the apri rite & animal sacrifice reflections of these complementary forms of agni are alternatively invoked by different clans as jAtavedas-> tanU-napAt: son of his own body – representing the continuous transmission or vaishvAnara -> narA-shaMsa – praise by all men.

Coincidentally to the question at the head of this thread, I’m in the process of preparing a note to be released in the near future on “kaushika exceptionalism” and the origin of the extent shrauta ritual that will discuss aspects relating to the above.