Shloka 43
Adhyāya 31: Rājasūya-samāgama — The Gathering of Kings and the Ordering of Hospitality
चित्रभानु: सुरेशश्व॒ अनलस्त्वं विभावसो । स्वर्गद्वारस्पृशश्चवासि हुताशो ज्वलनः शिखी
citrabhānuḥ sureśaś ca analas tvaṃ vibhāvaso | svargadvāraspṛśaś cāsi hutāśo jvalanaḥ śikhī vibhāvaso ||
Sahadeva addresses the Fire-god, praising him through his well-known epithets: “O Vibhāvasu, you are called Citrabhānu, Sureśa, and Anala. You ever touch the very gate of heaven with your rising flames. Because you consume the offered oblations, you are Hutāśa; because you blaze forth, you are Jvalana; and because you bear a crest of flame, you are Śikhī.”
सहदेव उवाच
Educational Q&A
The verse highlights Agni as the sacred mediator of offerings and a purifier who upholds ritual truth: fire ‘consumes’ oblations, rises heavenward, and thus symbolizes the ethical seriousness of vows, sacrifices, and truthful conduct performed before a divine witness.
Sahadeva is addressing and praising Agni by enumerating his traditional names and qualities—his brilliance, his insatiable consuming nature, his role as receiver of offerings, and his upward-reaching flames—using these epithets as a formal invocation/stuti within the ongoing discourse of the chapter.