The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c13.11

c13.11

I have already quoted Brugmann to show that *agra* becomes *ār* or *aer* in Teutonic languages. Now further comparing Lat. *integru*, *integer* with Fr. *entier* ; Gk. *dakru*, Goth. *tagr* with Eng. *tear* ; *pagan* with *paien* and *regen* with *rain*, we are led to infer that where *k* or *g* is dropped before *r* or a liquid we may expect *two* contiguous vowels, probably because this *gr* is at first optionally altered into *ger* or *gar*. We can now understand why *Orion* was sometimes spelt as *Oarion* ; and the existence of this double form confirms, in my opinion, the derivation above suggested. As for *Orion* alone we might derive it from *oros*, limit, or *ōra*, spring, and *ion*, going thus, giving the same meaning, *viz.*, the limit or the beginning of the year or spring, as *Āgrayaṇa* in Sanskrit. But this does not account for the double form—*Orion* and *Oarion*—unless the latter be taken for a poetic or a dialectic variation of *Orion*. I therefore prefer to derive the word from Sanskrit *Āgrayaṇa*.