Page 124 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

ORION AND HIS BELT 109

ancestors the holiest of the whole year, and the gods were
parvin and parviz. • This keen-sighted suggestion of Dr. Haug
has been pronounced by Mr. Mills as 'doubtful, and refuted by
Vistasp Yasht 29, where Darmesteter renders a word probably
akin as ' the many'. ' But excepting this difference of opinion
all agree in holding this Yasht to be an ancient one, ' a reproduc-
tion of an Aryan original, 't and that the verse above given
contains a description of the belt of Orion. Orion is Haoma, the
Soma of the Indians which is its presiding deity in the Vedic
works, and the above verse states that God has given a natural
star-studded girdle to Haoma. This girdle is, therefore, no
other than the belt of Orion. The verse in the Haoma Yasht,
however suggests more than it denotes. Both Haug and Mills
have used the work 'girdle' in the translation. But whether we
uSe ' girdle ' or ' belt ', it hardly conveys the idea of the original
aivyaonghanem. It is a striking instance of how in translations
we sometimes lose the force of the original. .Aivayaonghtma is a
Zend word for the kusti, or the sacred thread of the Parsis,
which they wear round their waist. The 'girdle' or the 'belt' of
Orion is thus said to be his kusti, and though we may have no
more traces of the 'belt' or the' club' of Orion in the Parsi scrip-
tures, the above verse at once directs our attention to the place
where we may expect to find the t~aces of Orion's belt in the
)ndian works. I have before pointed out that Orion or Mriga-
:shiras is called PrajApati in the Vedic works, otherwise called
Yajna. A belt or girdle or a ·piece of cloth round the waist of
Orion or Yajna will therefore be naturally named after him as
yajnopavtta, the upvtta, or the cloth of Yajna. The term however,
now denotes the sacred thread of the BrAhmaJ}.s, and it may natu.
rally ~asked whether it owes its character, if not the origin, to
;the beJt of Orion. I think it does on the following grounds.
The word yajnopavfta is derived by all native scholars from
ya)na * upPv£ta; but there is a difference of opinion as to whether
we should understanq the compound to mean an ' upavtta for yajna ',
i. e., for s~ificial pu'rposes, or, whether it is the ' upav£ta of yajna '.
"The forme.r is not ind,orrect, but authority is in favour of the latter.
• Dr. H.lWg's Essays on the Parsis, p. 18:~.
t Se~ $acrcd Books of the East Series, Vol. XXXI, Zend Avesta,
:Part III, .P· _238.