 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, fire appearing to "enter into" water when quenched by it.Similarly, associations with Savitr could be understood as deriving from an image of the setting sun sinking into the ocean.