The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c10.61

c10.61

support. In the chapter on the Kṛittikās, I have drawn attention to the remarks of Prof. Max Müller who objected to the conclusion based entirely on the Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa on the ground that no allusion to the position of the Kṛittikās was to be found in the Vedic hymns. We can now account for this silence; for how can the hymns, which appear to be sung when the sun was in Orion at the beginning of the year, contain any allusion to the period when the vernal equinox fell in the Kṛittikās? This could have been easily perceived if, instead of confining to the controversy about the position of the Kṛittikās and endeavouring to find out if some clue to the date of the Veda could be obtained from the determination of the original number and source of the Nakṣatras, scholars had pushed their inquiries further back and examined the Vedic hymns in the same critical spirit. It would not have been difficult in that case to discover the real meaning of the Vedic verse which states that "the dog awakened the Ṛibhus at the end of the year." I have in a previous chapter already referred to the verses in the Ṛigveda regarding the position of Yama's dogs and the death of Namuchi. These passages, as well as the description of Vṛika or the dog-star rising before the sun after crossing the eternal waters, the terminus of the Devayāna (Rig. i. 105. 11.), sufficiently indicate the position of the equinoxes in those days. In the next chapter I propose to discuss and examine two other important passages from the Rigveda, which *directly* bear out the statement in the Taittirīya Saṃhitā with which we have started, *viz.*, that the Phalgunī full-moon commenced the year at the winter solstice in days previous to those of the Taittirīya Saṃhitā and the Brāhmaṇas.