The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c9.24

c9.24

Now when the vernal equinox was in Orion or Mriga-shiras it was the beginning of the Devayāna, and as the constellation is remarkable for its brilliancy and attractiveness the ancient Aryans may have been naturally influenced not merely to connect their old traditions with it, but also to develope them on the same lines. Thus the Devayāna and the Pitriyāna, as representing the two hemispheres must be joined, and the vernal and the autumnal equinoxes became the natural points of union between the regions of gods and Yama. The equinoxes were, in fact, the gates of heaven, and as such it was natural to suppose that they were watched by dogs. In the Rigveda i. 48. 15 the dawn is spoken of as illuminating the "gates of heaven," and in i. 13. 6 and ii. 3. 5 the gates-deties are invoked to keep the gates open. We have a similar invocation in the Vājasaneyi Sanhitā 21. 49. This shows that the idea of the "gates of heaven" was not unknown in Vedic times and the arrangement of the gates on the sacrificial ground, which is prepared on the model of the annual passage of the sun, shows that these gates divided the whole hemisphere into two parts. Macrobius records a tradition that "the ancients designated the signs of Cancer and Capricorn as the gates of the sun, at which having arrived, the luminary seemed to retrace his path in the zone which he never leaves."* Now Macrobius could not but speak in the language of the twelve zodiacal portions, and if we therefore divest his statement of the form in which it is naturally expressed it means that the equinoxes, which the ancients supposed to be once in the zodiacal signs named above, were then called gates of heaven.