The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c9.3

c9.3

THE part of the heavens, which contains the Nakshatras, we have now to consider, is the most attractive and interesting in the celestial sphere. Even a casual observer on a clear night is sure to be attracted by its splendid appearance, and the rising of the sun in this portion of the heavens at the beginning the year must have rendered it doubly attractive to the ancient Aryan observers. It contains no less than five stars of the first magnitude including Sirius and a number of the second, with the stream of the Milky Way passing through them. Here there was a fine field for the virgin imagination of the ancient poets and priests and the numerous legends that exist in almost all the sections of the Aryan race about this portion of the heavens fully show that they did not fail to make use of this brilliant opportunity. I intend to examine some of these legends in this chapter with a view to see what corroborative evidence we may get therefrom. If we can more naturally and easily explain the legends that relate to this part of the heavens on the present theory, than has hitherto been done, we may fairly conclude that we have rightly interpreted the passages from the Brâhmaṇas; if not, we shall have either to revise our assumption or to give it up entirely. But before we do so we must, as far as possible, try to identify the asterisms and determine their forms as described in the ancient works.