Agneya Kandam of Samveda: The Concept of Agni

Until date, several attempts have been made by Indian and Foreign thinkers to decipher Veda an Indian ancient scripture, entirely differing from each other in their methods and results. Most of them are through the guided readings by the force of repetition. These texts generally regarded within comprehension, bewilderment or derision. The language of the sutras in Veda is a symbolic one that constantly operates at different levels. In this paper, efforts are made to co-relate the depicted ideas in Agneya-Kandam of Sam-Veda with the scientific ideas of the modern times. The idiosyncratic use of scientific terminology of modern science when applies to the term ‘Agni’ and its properties such as its immortal nature and has two forms such as holy and bright like the forms of energy. Looking from todays perspective, Agneya-Kandam can be defined as a theory of life in the life sciences, that debates life in relation-not necessarily in opposition to physicalism which reduces all life activities to physical phenomena. It is conception of a agni that conceptualized as an organizing power as the realization of God in the human. Though it was compatible with life force, vitalism etc, it vanished after the Vedic era. The latter terms became the dominant paradigm and it constructed a myth of victory by refutation when chemist Wöhler produced the organic urea.