Agni Pariksha (agni-parīkṣā)

An agni pariksha is a trial by fire, an ordeal in which fire is asked to confirm a person's purity or truthfulness by refusing to harm them. The best known instance belongs to Sita in the Ramayana, whose story Markandeya recounts to the exiled Pandavas, and the Mahabharata assumes the logic wherever fire is used as a witness. The epic's own ordeals are usually social rather than elemental, which is part of its point: Draupadi is offered no fire to walk through, only a hall of silent men.