The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c9.26

c9.26

The Iranians, however, have preserved the legend more fully. With them the equinox is not merely a gate, but a bridge connecting heaven and hell—the Devaloka and the Yamaloka, or the Devayâna and the Pitriyâna—and “dogs that keep the Chinvat Bridge” help the departing soul to cross it. Darmesteter, in his introduction to the Vendidad, published in the Sacred Books of the East Series, observes* that “this reminds one at once of the three-headed Kerberos, watching at the doors of hell and still more of the four-eyed dogs of Yama, who guard the ways to the realm of death” (Rig. x. 14.10). The ideas are, indeed, strikingly similar and point out to a common source. Kerberos has even been identified with Sanskrit *Shabala* or *Sharvara*, meaning variegated or a dog of Yama. But, as far as I know, no satisfactory explanation has yet been given of these legends nor any attempt made to explain them on a rational basis.† If we, however, suppose that the vernal equinox was once in Orion, the constellations of Canis Major and Canis Minor—the two dogs—would then be on the boundary line of heaven and Yama’s region, and the whole of the above story may be seen illustrated in the sky like that of Prajâpati and Rudra previously referred to.‡ According to Bundahis xii. 7, the Chinvat Bridge extends from the height of Chakâd-i-Dâitak in the middle of the world to the summit of Arezur at the gate of hell; while Dr. Geiger observes that "it was believed to have been built over a wide expanse of water which separates the paradise from this world."* In the later Indian literature we are told that the souls of the deceased have to cross a stream† before they reach the region of Yama, while the story of Charon shews that even the Greeks entertained a similar belief. What could this river be? With the vernal equinox in Orion, one can easily identify it with the Milky Way, which could then have been appropriately described as separating the regions of gods and Yama, the Devayâna and the Pitṛiyâna, or the Northern and the Southern hemisphere. In the later Hindu works it is actually called the Celestial River (*svarṇadī*), while the Greeks have placed