Svahaस्वाहा

Svaha (स्वाहा) is a word before she is a goddess. 'Svāhā!' is the exclamation with which offerings are poured into the sacrificial fire, and it still closes countless mantras; without it, tradition holds, the gods do not receive what is offered. Personified, Svaha becomes a goddess in her own right — consort of Agni, the fire god, and thus present at every sacrifice ever performed. In Puranic genealogies she is usually a daughter of Daksha.

The story

The Mahabharata gives her a love story woven into the birth of the war god Skanda. Agni, it tells, was consumed with desire for the wives of the seven great sages. Svaha, who had long loved Agni, took the form of each wife in turn and went to him — but could manage only six of the seven, for the fidelity of Arundhati, wife of Vasishtha, was beyond imitation. The seed Agni spilled she carried to a golden pit on a mountain, and from it Skanda was born; the six blameless wives, divorced on suspicion, rose to the sky as the Krittikas, the Pleiades. The tale explains at once the god of war's six faces, the stars, and why every oblation names Svaha: Agni obtained her as wife, and her name became inseparable from his fire.

Significance

Svaha is the clearest case of a ritual utterance raised to divinity — the sacrifice's own efficacy given a face. She is rarely worshipped alone, but she is spoken, daily, wherever fire ritual survives.