  We study the `initial state' of an anisotropic universe in Eddington-inspired
Born-Infeld gravity filled with a scalar field, whose potential has various
forms. With this purpose, the evolution of a spatially-flat, homogeneous
anisotropic Kasner universe is studied. We find an exact evolution of universe
for each scalar potential by imposing a maximal pressure condition. The
solution is shown to describe the initial state of the universe. The state is
regular if the scalar potential increases not faster than the quadratic power
for large field values. We also show that the anisotropy does not raise any
defect in early universe contrary to the case of general relativity.
