Page 95 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

82 SAMAGRA TILAK -- 2 • THE ORION
...
therefore divest his statement of the form in which it is naturally
expressed it means that the equinoxes, which the ancients supposed
to be once in the zodiacal signs named above, were then called
gates of heaven.
· The Iranians, however, have preserved the legend more fully.
Witb.theni the equinox is not merely a gate, but a bridge connect-
ing heaven and bell- the Devaloka and the Yamaloka, or the
Devay&na and the Pif!iyana- and ' dogs that keep the Chinvat
Bridge' help the departing soul to cross it. Darmesteter, in his
introduction to the Vendidad, published in the Sacred Bpoks of
the East Series, observes• that ' this reminds one at once of the
three-beaqed Kerberos, watching at the doors of hell and st_ill more
of the four-eyed dogs of Yama, who guard the way to the realm
of death ' ( ~ig. x. 14. 10 ). The ideas are indeed, strikingly similar
and point out to a common source. Kerberos has even been
dentified with Sanskrit Shabala or Sharvara, meaning variegated
·or a dog ofYama. But, as far as I know, no satisfactory explana-
tion has yet been given of these legends nor any attempt made to
explain them on a rational basis.t If we, however, suppose that
the vernal equinox was once in Orion, the constellations of Canis
Major and Canis Minor-the two dogs-would then be on the
boundary line of heaven and Yama's region, and the whole of the
above story may be seen illustrated in the sky like that of PrajApati
and Rudra previously referred to.:j: According to Bundahis xii.
7, the Chinvat Bridge extends from the height of Chaka.d-i-DAitak
in the middle of the world to the summit of Arezur at the gate of
bell; while Dr. Geiger observes that' it was believed to have been
built over a wide expanse of water which separates the paradise

• Sacred Books of the East, Vol. IV, Zend Avesta, Part r,
introduction v, 4.
t See Kaegi's ~igveda, by Arrowsmith, p. 160, note 274a, where
the writer quotes Aufrecht to the same effect.
t Weber and Zimmer appear to have suggested that the conception
of Yam a's dogs might have been formed from some constellations.
Bloomfield rejects this suggestion and tries to show that the dogt
represent the sun and the moon. His explanation does not, however,
show how ~nd why the dogs came to be located at the gates of heaven
and why they bhould be entrusted amongst all the sections of the Aryan
race with the duty of watching the souls of tqe dead. Bloomfield qtotes
aKth. S. xxx\ii, q (where day and night are called the dogs of Yama)