Page 119 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

106 SAMAGRA TILAK- 2 • THE ORION

ancestors the holiest of the whole year and the gods were
believed to descend at the time from heaven and to visit the
abodes of men, we may firmly believe that this representation
also was a scene of the life of the Gods. I hope to have thus
proved that the BrAhmattical and the German traditions are al-
most fully equal and I have finally attempted to lay open the idea
from which the ancient myth proceeded. According to my expla-
nations, our common Indo-European ancestors believed that the
sun and the day-light (which was, so to say, personified under
the image of various animals, as a cow or bull, a horse, a boar,
a stag ), was every day killed in the env~ning and yet re-appeared
almosl unhurt, the next morning. Yet a decay of his power was
clearly visible in the time from midsummer to midwinter, in which
latter time, in the more northern regions he almost wholly dis-
appears and in northern Germany, during the time of the twelve
days, is seldom to be seen, the heavens being then usually covered
all over with clouds. I have therefore supposed it was formerly
believed that the sun was then completely destroyed by a God,
who was both a God of night and winter as also storm, Rudra =
Wodan. The relics of the destroyed sun, they seem to have recog-
nised in the brigthest constellations of the winter months, De~em­
ber and January, that is, in Orion and the surrounding stars.
But when they saw that they had been deceived and the sun re-
appeared the myth gained the fwther development of the seed of
Praj&pati, from the remnants of which a new Aditya as well as
all bright and shinning Gods were produced. I have further shown
that both Greek astronomy and Gennan tradition, proved to be
in an intimate relation with the Brahmanical traditions; for the
former shows us, in almost the same place of the celestial sphere,
a gigantic hunter ( Mrigavyidha, Sirius; Orion, the hunter Mriga-
shiras ) whilst the latter has not yet forgotten that Saint
Hubertus, the. stag-killer, who· is nothing but a representative of
the God Wo<:Um. who had, like Rudra, the power of healing all
diseases ( the bhi lh'izktqma of the Vedas ) and particularly possessed
cures for mad dogs which not only were his favourite companions,
but were also in near connection with the hottest season of the
year, when the declining of the sun begins, the so-called dog-days. "
Here is an equally striking coincidence between the German
and the Vedic traditions. The' mummeries were performed 'at the
close-.of the old year and at the beginn_ing of the new one,' and