The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c3.2

c3.2

The chief result of my inquiry would be evident from the title of the essay. The high antiquity of the Egyptian civilization is now generally admitted. But scholars still hesitate to place the commencement of the Vedic civilization earlier than 2400 B. C. I have endeavoured to show in the following pages that the traditions recorded in the Rigveda unmistakably point to a period not later than 4000 B. C., when the vernal equinox was in Orion, or, in other words, when the Dog-star (or the Dog as we have it in the Rigveda) commenced the equinoctial year. Many of the Vedic texts and legends, quoted in support of this conclusion, have been cited in this connection and also rationally and intelligently explained for the first time, thus throwing a considerable light on the legends and rites in later Sanskrit works. I have further tried to show how these legends are strikingly corroborated by the legends and traditions of Iran and Greece. Perhaps some of this corroborative evidence may not be regarded as sufficiently conclusive by itself, but in that case I hope it will be borne in mind that my conclusions are not based merely upon mythological or philological coincidences, and if some of these are disputable, they do not in any way shake the validity of the conclusions based on the express texts and references scattered over the whole Vedic literature. I wanted to collect together all the facts that could possibly throw any light upon, or be shown to be connected with the question in issue, and if in so doing I have mentioned some, that are not as convincing as the others, I am sure that they will at least be found interesting, and that even after omitting them there will be ample evidence to establish the main point. I have, therefore, to request my critics not to be prejudiced by such facts, and to examine and weigh the whole evidence I have adduced in support of my theory before they give their judgment upon it.