I am the ritual and the worship, the medicine and the mantra, the butter burnt in the fire, and I am the flames that consume it. I am the father of the universe and its mother, essence and goal of all knowledge, the refiner, the sacred Ôm, and the threefold Vedas. I am the heat of the sun, I hold back the rain and release it; I am death, and the deathless, and all that is or is not. (9.16–19)
