III.13

✦ ─── ⟐ ─── ✦

O Agni, thou art the purifier most holy! Through thy transformative power, all that is unclean becometh clean, all that is base becometh precious. There is no offering so humble that thy touch cannot make it noble, no sacrifice so simple that thy presence cannot make it divine.

We bring unto thee our butter and our grain, our soma and our wine. In their raw form, these things are merely sustenance for mortal mouths. But once they pass through thy sacred flame, they are transformed! They become ambrosia, the food of the gods themselves. Thy touch conferreth divinity upon all things.

Even the most sinful mortal, the basest of creatures, can find redemption through thy power. If he doth come before thee with a sincere heart, if he doth kindle thy flame with genuine devotion, then all his accumulated corruption is consumed. The ash that remaineth is pure. The slate is made clean. He is born anew.

This is the deepest mystery of the sacrifice: not the giving of gifts, but the transformation of all things — matter into spirit, crude substance into divine essence, mortality into eternal being. And thou, O Agni, art the alchemist, the great transformer, the keeper of the sacred transmutation.

Therefore, we come before thee with our prayers and our offerings, knowing that we are unworthy, yet trusting in thy mercy and thy power. Purify us, O Agni! Burn away our impurities, consume our doubts, reduce to ash all that separateth us from the divine. And in the ash, plant the seed of something new, something whole, something worthy of thy sacred flame. Let us be reborn through thee, refined in thy fire, perfected by thy touch.