Page 101 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

88 SAMAGRA TILAK - 2 8 THE OIUON

priests failed to realise that it was the divine or heaVenly, and not
an earthly dos that was here described, as drivins the death-fiend.
The Atharva Veda vi. 80. 3 shows that the Indian priests of the
time well understood it to mean a dos who is ' born of waters,
whose house is in the sky, and who sheds his lustre all around. '
There is another set of traditions which we can similarly ex-
plain on the supposition with which we have started, viz., that the
vernal equinox was then in Orion. The heliacal rising of the
constellation at the beJinning of the year marked the revival of
nature at the commencement of spring and the asterism may thus
be said to represent .all these milder influences which in later
mytholoJY were fully embodied in the conception of Vi~h~u.
But the case was completely reversed if we take the acronycal
risins of the same. It was at the autumnal equinox that the Dog-
star rose at the beginning of night, and though, strictly speaking,
it marked the end of VarshA, yet the portion of the heaven where-
in the constellation is situated could have been easily regarded as
the battle-ground of Indra and Vrita who fought in those days,
and also as the stage on which the terrible Rudra made his appear-
ance. In short, the constellation naturally became the harbinger
of the mild and the terrible as_pects of nature. It is in this latter
sense that the Dog-star might be considered a rain-star, and Sarama
like the Greek Hermes with which it is identified, might be said to
have been sent to search for the cows of Indra taken away by
the Papis of the nether world. The . Greek legends mention two
watch dogs-Kerberos and Orthros; and of these Kerberos has
been etymologically identified with Sharvara and Orthros with
Vritra. • But no explanation has be(n given of how this Vritra
came to be stationed at the gates of hell. Prof. Max Mtiller suggests
that Orthros is the dark spirit that is to be fought by the sun in
the morning. But then, this does not explain why it was called
Vritra, and how it came to be killed by Herakles. The legend of
in the form of"a cirde, beginning with the eastern points. The otr,ring
to ShJlma is placed outside the circle at the south_-west point. In other
words, Shy!ma and ·SlH1baJa are placed on each side of the western
point, in the same way as the clogs appear In the he:\vens on each side
of the :Milky Way.
• Ma:~: Muller, GiA"ord Lecture.s. 1891, p. 248. Biographies of Words
p. 19i ·