The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c12.40

Language: English

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Lastly, there remains only one question to be considered. Is the Vedic period here determined consistent with the traditions and opinions entertained about it by the ancient and modern scholars? I think it is. I have already referred to the remarks of Prof. Weber who, though he regards the Kṛittikâ evidence as vague and uncertain, yet on geographical and historical grounds arrives at the conclusion that the beginnings of the Indian literature may be traced back to the time when the Indian and the Iranian Aryas lived together; and this opinion is confirmed by the fact that there are Yashts in the Zend Avesta which may be considered as "reproductions" of the Vedic hymns. Dr. Haug considers that this condition may be satisfied if we place the beginning of the Vedic literature in 2400 B. C.,* but he was not cognisant of the fact that the vernal equinox can be shown to have been in Mṛgashiras at the time when the Parsis and the Indians lived together. In the light of this new evidence, there is therefore no reasonable objection for carrying the periods of the Vedic literature further back by over a thousands years or to about 4000 B. C. This period is further consistent with the fact that in 470 B. C. Xanthos of Lydia considered Zoroaster to have lived about 600 years before the Trojan War (about 1800 B. C.); † for according to our calculation the Parsis must have separated from the Indian Aryas in the latter part of the Orion period, that is to say, between 3000 to 2500 B. C.;

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while, if we suppose that the separation occurred at a considerably later date, a Greek writer in the fifth century before Christ would certainly have spoken of it as a recent event. Aristotle and Eudoxus have gone still further and placed the era of Zoroaster as much as 6000 to 5000 years before Plato. The number of years here given is evidently traditional, but we can at any rate infer from it this much that at the time of Aristotle (about 320 B. C.) Zoroaster was considered to have lived at a very remote period of antiquity; and if the era of Zoroaster is to be considered so old, *a fortiori*, the period of the Vedas must be older still. Then we have further to consider the fact that an epic poem was written in Greek in about 900 or 1000 B. C. The language of this epic is so unlike that of the Vedic hymns that we must suppose it to have been composed long time after the Greeks left their ancient home and travelled westward. It is not, therefore, at all improbable that they separated after the formation of the legends of Orion and before the vernal equinox was in the Kṛittikās, that is, between 3500 to 3000 B. C. Finally we can easily understand how the acutest and most learned of Indian theologians and scholars believed the Vedas to have come down to them from an unknown period of antiquity. A revelation need not necessarily be *anādi*, or without a beginning.

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The history of the Bible and the Koran shows us that a revelation can be conceived to be made at a particular period of time. If so, the mere fact that it is believed to be revealed does not account for the opinion entertained by the Hindu theological writers that the Veda has come down to them from times beyond the memory of man. Some of these writers lived several centuries before Christ, and it is quite natural to suppose that their opinions were formed from traditions current in their times. The periods of the Vedic antiquity we have determined render such an explanation highly probable. According to the Christian theology, the world was created only about 4000 years before Christ; or, in other words, the notions of antiquity entertained by these Christian writers could not probably go beyond 4000 B. C., and not being able to say anything about the period preceding it, they placed the beginning of the world at about 4000 B. C. The Indian theologians may be supposed to have acted somewhat in the same manner. I have shewn that the most active of the Vedic period commenced at about 4000 B. C., and there are grounds for carrying it back still further. The *form* of the hymns might have been more or less modified in later times;

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but the *matter* remained the same, and coming down from such a remote antiquity it could have been easily believed by Jaimini, Pânini, and the Brahmâvadin of old to have been in existence almost from the beginning of the world, or rather the beginning of all known things. We can thus satisfactorily account for all the opinions and traditions current about the age of the Vedas amongst ancient and modern scholars in India and in Europe, if we place the Vedic period at about 4000 B. C, in strict accordance with the astronomical references and facts recorded in the ancient literature of India. When everything can thus be consistently explained, I leave it to scholars to decide whether the above period should or should not be accepted as determining, as correctly as it is possible to do under the circumstances, the oldest period of Aryan civilization. It is the unerring clock of the heavens that has helped us in determining it, and it is, in my opinion, hardly probable to discover better means for the purposes. The evidence was in danger of being obliterated out of the surface of the heavens, when the Greeks borrowed their astronomical terminology from the Egyptians. But it has fortunately escaped and outlived, not only this, but also another threatened attack when it was proposed in England and Germany to name the constellation of Orion after Nelson or Napoleon as a mark of respect for these heroes.

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The bold and brilliant Orion, with his attendant Canis, preserves for us the memory of far more important and sacred times in the history of the Aryan race.