Page 130 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

OIUON AND HIS BELT llS
. .
cter of a balu's dress was derived fiom what the ancient priests
conceived to be the dress of Prajipati. With these coincidences
of details, still preserved, it is impossible to deny that the con-
figuration of the constellation of Orion, is of Aryan origin and
that the Hellenic, the Iranian and the Indian Aryas must have
lived together when these traditions and legends were formed.
And now it may be asked if the Eastern and the Western
legends and traditions of Orion are so strikingly similar, if not
identical, if the dress and the form of the constellation are shewn
to have been the same amongst the different sections of the Aryan
race, and if the constellations at the feet and hi front of Orion-
Canis Major and Canis Minor, K.uon and Prokuon, • Shvan and
Prashvan, the Dog and the Foredog-are Aryan both in naine
and traditions; in short, if the figure, the costume, 'the attendants
and the history of Orion are already recognised as Aryan is it not
highly probable that the name, Orion, should itself be a transfor-
mation or corruption of an ancient Aryan word 1 Orion is an old
Greek name. Homer in the fifth book of Odyssey · speaks of the
bold Orion and the traditional coincidences, mentioned above
fully establish the probability of Plutarch's statement that the
word is not borrowed from a non-Aryan source. Two of the three
names, mentioned by Plutarch Canis (Kuon ) and Ursa ( .A.rktos )
have again been phonetically indentified with Sansktit shvan and
rik,luu, and we may, therefore, legitimately expect to find Orion
similarly traced back to an Aryan original. The task, however, is
not so easy as it appears to be at the first sight. The Greek mytho-
logy does not give us any help in the solution of this question. It

have meant nothing more than a mantle and a girdle in primitive times
and that the primitive people invested Orion with a clresl 11milar to
their own. When Orion came to be looked upon as celeatfal repreaen-
tation of PrajApati, Orion'a drel! mast have attaiJ;ed the sacred character
which we find preaerved in the sacred thread of the Panis and the
BrlhmaQs. I, howt~ver, know of no passage in the Vedic literature
where yaj114 ia used in the aenae of a girdle, and hence the above aug·
gestion must be considered b very doubtful. But it may be here mea-
tioned that in Marathi we use the wurd j;;,lllt to denote the sacred
thread. Th1s word is evidently derived from Sk. yJjfla, Prlltrita j~.
Perhapa we have retained only the 6rlt word of the long compound
''ajnop..rlita.
• See note on page go sufJrtJ.