to a personal endeavor of discipline, undertaken to achieve a goal. One who undertakes tapas is a Tapasvin. The fire deity in Hinduism, Agni, is central to many Hindu rituals such as yajna and homa. Agni is considered an agent of heat, of sexual energy, of incubation; Agni is considered a great tapasvin. The word tapasvi refers to a male ascetic or meditator, while tapasvinī to a female. Buddhism Before he reached his enlightenment, the Buddha tried asceticism (self-mortification) of the type found in other Śramaṇa religions (Jainism), and this is referred to as Tapas (Tibetan: dka' thub, Chinese: kuxing, Japanese: kugyo, Korean: kohaeng). Post-enlightenment, the Buddhist doctrines of the Middle Way and Noble Eightfold Path did not include ascetic practices. The Buddha, in multiple Buddhist texts, such as Majjhima Nikaya and Devadaha Sutta, attributes the ascetic self-mortification style Tapas practices to Jainism (Niganthas), wherein such practices annihilate past Karmas and stop new Karmas from being created, ones that lead to the cycle of rebirths in Saṃsāra. These ancient Buddhist texts are significant in their claims of the existence of Jain Brahmins and ascetics, along with their karma doctrine and reasons for their Tapas practices in ancient times: These ascetic Tapas practices is also confirmed by Jainism texts such as Uttarajjhyayana. The Buddhist scholar Dharmakirti strongly criticizes the Jaina practice of Tapas as a means of liberation, while many Jainism scholars have in turn strongly criticized Dharmakirti opinion and analysis, explaining why their approach to ascetic Tapas is appropriate. According to Hajime Nakamura and other scholars, some scriptures of early Buddhism suggest that ascetic Tapas was a part of Buddhist practice in its early days, wherein body-mortification was an option for the Buddhist monk in his spiritual practice. In the Theravada tradition of Thailand, a monastic practice emerged in the 12th-century who did Tapas as ascetic wandering and forest or crematory dwelling monks, with austere practices, and these came to be known as Thudong. These ascetic Buddhist monks are also found in Myanmar, and as in Thailand, they are known to pursue their own version of Buddhism, resisting the hierarchical institutionalized sangha structure of monasteries in Buddhism. Textual evidence suggests that asceticTapas practices were a part of the Buddhist tradition in Sri Lanka by the 3rd century BCE, and this tradition continued through the medieval era in parallel to sangha style monastic tradition. In the Mahayana tradition, asceticism with esoteric