The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c10.22

c10.22

Now there is a class of traditions in which this ancient God is said to hunt a stag and shoot at it, just as Rudra in the Brâhmaṇas is represented as shooting at the *ṛishya* and *rohit*. The stag in German mythology, is the animal of the god Freyr, who, like Prajâpati, is a god of the sun, of fertility, &c., so that the shot at that stag is to be compared with Rudra's shooting at the *ṛishya* = Prajâpati. I have further endeavoured to show that some indications exist in the mediæval penitentials of Germany and England, which give us to understand that at the close of the old year and at the beginning of the new one (we call that time "die-zwolften" or the twelve days, *dvâdashâha* of the Indians) there were mummeries performed by the country people, in which two persons seem to have been the principal performers, the one of whom was disguised as a stag while the other was disguised as a hind. Both represented a scene, which must have greatly interested and amused the people, but very much offended the clergy, by its sordid and hideous character; and from all the indications which are given in the text, communicated by me (pp 108-180), we may safely suppose that the chief contents of this representation was the connection of a stag and a hind (or of an old woman), which was accompanied by the singing of unchaste songs. From English customs at the New-Year's Day, we may also infer that the hunter's shooting at this pair was even a few centuries ago, nay, is even now, not quite forgotten. Now as the time of the "twelve days" was with our ancestors the holiest of the whole year, and the gods were believed to descend at that time from heaven and to visit the abodes of men, we may firmly believe that this representation also was a scene of the life of the Gods. I hope to have thus proved that the Brahmanical and the German traditions are almost fully equal, and I have finally attempted to lay open the idea from which the ancient myth proceeded. According to my explanations, our common Indo-European ancestors believed that the sun and the day-light (which was, so to say, personified under the image of various animals, as a cow or bull, a horse, a boar, a stag), was every day killed in the evening and yet re-appeared almost unhurt, the next morning. Yet a decay of his power was clearly visible in the time from midsummer to midwinter, in which latter time, in the more northern regions he almost wholly disappears, and in northern Germany, during the time of the twelve days, is seldom to be seen, the heavens being then usually covered all over with clouds. I have therefore supposed, it was formerly believed that the sun was then completely destroyed by a God, who was both a God of night and winter as also of storm, Rudra-Wodan. The relics of the destroyed sun, they seem to have recognised in the brightest constellations of the winter months, December and January, that is, in Orion and the surrounding stars. But when they saw that they had been deceived and the sun re-appeared the myth gained the further development of the seed of Prajâpati, from the remnants of which a new Âditya as well as all bright and shining Gods were produced. I have further shown that both Greek astronomy and German tradition proved to be in an intimate relation with the Brahmanical tradition; for the former shows us, in almost the same place of the celestial sphere, a gigantic hunter (Mrigavyâdha, Sirius; Orion, the hunter Mrigashiras); whilst the latter has not yet forgotten that Saint Hubertus, the stag-killer, who is nothing but a representative of the God Wodan, who had, like Rudra, the power of healing all diseases (the *bhiṣhaktama* of the Vedas) and particularly possessed cures for mad dogs which not only were his favourite companions, but were also in near connection with the hottest season of the year, when the declining of the sun begins, the so-called *dog-days.*"