The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c12.22

c12.22

The oldest period in the Aryan civilization may therefore be called the Aditi or the pre-Orion period, and we may roughly assign 6000-4000 B. C. as its limits. It was a period when the *finished* hymns do not seem to have been known and half-prose and half-poetical Nivids or sacrificial formulæ "giving the principal names, epithets, and feats of the deity invoked" were probably in use. The Greeks and the Parsis have retained no traditions of this period, for the simple reason that they carried with them only the calendar which was in force when they left the common home, while the Indian Aryas have preserved all the traditions with a super-religious fidelity and scrupulousness. It is thus that I explain why the oldest Greek and Parsi traditions do not go beyond Orion.