Editing Apam Napat (section)

==Fire and water==
In one Vedic hymn ''Apām Napāt'' is described as emerging from the water, golden, and "clothed in lightning", which has been conjectured to be a reference to fire.<ref name="RV2352"/> His regular identification with Agni, who is described  a number of times as hiding or residing in water,<ref>{{cite book |title=[[Shatapatha Brahmana|Satapatha Brahmana]] |edition=1882 |translator=Eggeling, Julius |chapter=Part&nbsp;1 (SBE12) 1:2:3:1 |chapter-url=http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/sbr/sbe12/sbe1209.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240301185312/https://sacred-texts.com/hin/sbr/sbe12/sbe1209.htm |archive-date=2024-03-01 |url-status=live |via=sacred-texts.com}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |others=Translated by Ralph T.H. Griffith |title=The Rig Veda/Mandala 7/Hymn 49 |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rig_Veda/Mandala_7/Hymn_49 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230512130530/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rig_Veda/Mandala_7/Hymn_49 |archive-date=2023-05-12 |website=Wikisource}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |others=Translated by Ralph T.H. Griffith |title=The Rig Veda/Mandala 3/Hymn 1 |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The%20Rig%20Veda/Mandala%203/Hymn%201 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230509212713/https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Rig_Veda/Mandala_3/Hymn_1 |archive-date=2023-05-09 |website=Wikisource}}</ref> and comparison with other Indo-European texts, have led some to speculate about the existence of a [[Proto-Indo-European mythology#Fire in water|Proto-Indo-European myth]] featuring a fire deity born from water.<ref name="West-2007">{{cite book |author=West, M.L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZXrJA_5LKlYC&pg=PA270 |title=Indo-European Poetry and Myth |date=24 May 2007 |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-19-928075-9 |edition=Reprint |pages=270–272 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240802055946/https://books.google.com/books?id=ZXrJA_5LKlYC&pg=PA270P#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=2024-08-02 |url-status=live}}</ref>

Other such mentions include the ninth-century [[Skaldic poetry|Skaldic poem]] [[Ynglingatal]], which uses the [[kenning]] ''sævar niðr'' 'kinsman of the sea' to refer to fire,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Marold |first=Edith |date=2012 |title=Þjóðólfr ór Hvini, Ynglingatal 4 |url=http://skaldic.org/m.php?p=verse&i=4399 |journal=Skaldic Poetry of the Scandinavian Middle Ages |language=en |volume=1 |pages=14}}</ref> and an old Armenian poem in which a reed in the middle of the sea spontaneously catches fire, from which springs the hero [[Vahagn]], with fiery hair and eyes that blaze like sun.

===Conjectured original fireless myth===
Whether fire was an original part of Apam Napat's nature remains a matter of debate, especially since this connection is absent from the Iranian version. [[Hermann Oldenberg]] believed Apam Napat was originally an independent water deity who later came to be associated with Agni, in part because of an ancient Indian belief that water contained fire within itself,<ref name="Iranica"/> fire appearing to "enter into" water when quenched by it.<ref name="Oldenberg">{{Cite book |last=Oldenberg |first=Hermann |url=https://archive.org/details/diereligiondesv00oldegoog |title=Die Religion des Veda |year=1894 |location=Berlin, Germany |pages=100–119 |language=de |trans-title=The Religion of the Veda}}</ref><ref name=Boyce-1989/>{{rp|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=F3gfAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA45 45]}}

Associations with Savitr could be understood as similarly deriving from an image of the setting sun sinking into the ocean. Another theory explains the connection between fire and water through lightning, "the flash of fire born from the rainbearing clouds".<ref>{{cite journal |last=Findly |first=Ellison Banks |year=1979 |title=The 'Child of the Waters': A Revaluation of Vedic Apāṃ Napāt |journal=Numen |volume=26 |issue=2 |pages=164–184 |doi=10.2307/3269717 |jstor=3269717 }}</ref>

==='Swamp gas' conjecture===
Based on the idea that this fire-from-water image was inspired by flaming seepage natural gas,<ref>{{cite book |last1=Tyrrell |first1=Maliheh S. |date=2000 |title=Aesopian Literary Dimensions of Azerbaijani Literature of the Soviet Period, 1920-1990 |page=34 |publisher=Lexington Books}}</ref> attempts have been made to connect the name "Apam Napat" to the word "[[wikt:naphtha|naphtha]]", which passed into Greek – and thence English – from an Iranian language.

However, there is only a modest amount of evidence for a link between the sacred fires of Iranian religion and petroleum or natural gas – although the account of the blowing of the 3&nbsp;sacred fires out to sea from the back of the ox Srishok where, unquenched, they continue to burn on the water<ref>{{cite book |title=[[Bundahishn]] |chapter=chapter&nbsp;18 verses&nbsp;8–9 |chapter-url=}}</ref> is suggestive – particularly in relation to [[hydrocarbon]] deposits in the Southwestern part of the [[Caspian Sea]], exploited currently by the [[Absheron gas field]] near [[Baku]] in [[Azerbaijan]].

The etymology of the word "naphtha" has been claimed likely to relate to the Akkadian ''napṭu'', "petroleum".<ref name="Forbes1966">{{cite book |author=Forbes |first=R. J. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nc4UAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA13 |title=Studies in Ancient Technology |publisher=Brill Archive |year=1966 |page=13 |id=GGKEY:YDBU5XT36QD |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200202094805/https://books.google.com/books?id=nc4UAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA13#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=2020-02-02 |url-status=live}}</ref>