The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c11.104

c11.104

There can be little doubt that the hymn gives a legend current in old Vedic days. But no explanation has yet been suggested, which accounts for all the incidents in the story or explains how it originated. Vṛiṣhâkapi is a Mṛiga, and his appearance and disappearance mark the cessation and the recommencement of the sacrifices. The Indian tradition identifies him with the sun in one form or another and comparison with Greek *Erikapaeos* points to the same conclusion. Our Vrishâkapi or Mriga must again be such as is liable to be conceived in the form of a head cut off from the body, and closely followed by a dog at its ear, unless we are prepared to treat the very *specific* threat of Indrânî as meaningless except a *general* threat. All these incidents are plainly and intelligibly explained by taking Vrishâkapi to represent the sun at the autumnal equinox, when the Dog-star or Orion commenced the equinoctial year; and, above all, we can now well understand why Vrishâkapi's house is said to be low in the south and how his Mriga disappears when he goes to the house of Indra—a point which has been a hard knot for the commentators to solve. I, therefore, conclude that the hymn gives us not only a 'description of the constellation of Orion and Canis (verses 4 and 5), but clearly and expressly defines the position of the sun when he passed to the north of the equator in old times (verse 22); and joined with the legend of the Ribhus we have here unmistakeable and reliable internal evidence of the hymns of the Rigveda to ascertain the period when the traditions incorporated in these hymns were first framed and conceived. In the face of these facts it is impossible to hold that the passages in the Taittirîya Sanhitâ and the Brâhmanas do not record a real tradition about the older beginning of the year.