The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c7.73

c7.73

So far, we have been going over the ground more or less traversed before by several scholars. But it may be asked if we have here reached the *Ultima Thule* of the Vedic antiquity. Does the oldest hymn, the first utterance of the Aryan mind, reach back thus far and no further? Was it such a hymn that the Brahma-vâdins of old and Pânini several centuries before Christ believed and declared as "seen"? In what follows, I propose to bring together such evidence from the Vedic works as would enable us to deal with these questions. I have already drawn attention to the fact that the Chitrâ and the Phalgunî full-moon are mentioned as the mouths or the beginnings of the year in the passage from the Taittirîya Sanhitâ last quoted and discussed. In the next chapter I shall endeavour to show how these statements are to be interpreted, how far they are corroborated by other evidence and what conclusions we may deduce therefrom.