Contents
- āgrahāyaṇa = Āgrayaṇa in the older works.
- Probable derivation of hayana
- The Āgrayaṇa sacrifices. Their number and nature.
- Performed every half-year in Vasanta and śarad
- Greek legends of Orion - Their similarity to Vedic legends
- German traditions and festivities
- Stag and hind
- Twelve nights
- Dog days
- All of which indicate the commencement of the year in Orion
- Dr. Kuhn’s explanation is insufficient.
- The usual adjuncts of Orion - His belt, staff and lion’s skin
- The aivyaonghana of Haoma in thc Avesta
- The yajñopavīta of the Brāhmaṇa
- Their sacred character probably borrowed from the belt of Orion or Yajña
- Use of mekhala, ajina and danḍa in the Upanayana ceremony.
- Probably in imitation of the costume of Orion or Prajāpati, the first of the Brāhmaṇs
- Derivation of Orion from Āgrayaṇa
-Its probability
- Phonetic difficulties
- Conclusion.
Intro
In the last chapter I have quoted an observation of Plutarch that the Greeks gave their own name to the constellation of Orion, and have there discussed some Vedic legends which corroborate Plutarch’s remarks and indicate that the vernal equinox was in Orion at that time. In the present chapter I mean to examine other legends which go to shew that the constellation of Orion was known and figured before the Greeks, the Parsis, and the Indians separated from their common home, and that the legends or the traditions so preserved, and perhaps the name of the constellation, can be naturally and easily explained only on the supposition that the vernal equinox was then near the asterism of Mr̥gaśiras.
hayana from ayana
I have already shown that Agrahāyni if not āgrahāyaṇa, can be traced back to Pāṇini’s time, as the name of a Nakṣatra, and that it is a mistake to derive it from the name of the full-moon day. We have now to see if we can trace back the word still further. The word hayana does not occur in the R̥gveda, and it may be doubted if the name Agrahayani was in use in the old Vedic days. Hāyana is, however, used in the Atharva Veda (viii. 2. 21 ; xi. 6. 17) and in the Brāhmaṇas; and may be compared with Zend Zayana neaning winter.(5) Pāṇini (iii. 1. 148) derives hayana from ha to go or abandon, after the analogy of gāyana and gives two meanings, vix, the grain ‘vrīhi’’ and ’time.’ Whether we accept this derivation or not, it is at any rale clear that the word was used in Panini’s days, to denote a division of time and a kind of grain, and I think we can better account for both these meanings of hāyana by connecting the word with ayana and Āgrayaṇa or the half yearly sacrifices.
Dr. Geiger, speaking of the old Parsi calendar observes that “probably the half-year was more employed in civil life than the complete year". (* Dr. Geiger’s Civ. Bast, fraa., Vol. 1., p. 152. Dr. Schrader makes a similar observation. “For all these reasons (most of which are philological) I believe we have the right to presuppose an original division of the Indo Germanic year iato two seasons.” Preh Ant, Ary. Peoples, Part IV., chap. vi., p. 802 ) Now whether the observation be entirely correct or not, we can, I think at any rate, assume that the division of the year into two equal halves is an old one. I have already discussed the two-fold division of the year into Devayāna and Pitr̥yāna and its coincidence with the passage of the sua to the north and the south of the equator. Ayana in the sense of such a division thus appears to be an old word and by prefixing a to it we may easily get hayana subsequently changed into hayana like the words in the Prajnādi list, wherein this word was not included as it was derived by Panini in a different way. The insertion and omission of h when followed by a vowel at the beginning of a word is not uncommon even in these days, and there is nothing extra ordinary if we derive hayana from ayana. (* Cf. The derivation of the word ‘history’ from ‘istory’ in Max Mūller’s Lectures on the Science of Language, Vol. Il., p. 329. )
Now by a natural process when we have two forms of a word or two derivatives of the same root they gradually come to be utilised for specific purposes, and so acquire distinct meanings. Sanskrit lexicographers class such words under Yogarūḍha, meaning thereby that etymology and convention have each a share in determining their denotation. Hāyana might thus come to exclusively denote a complete year, while ayana continued to donote a half-year as as before. (Zend Zayano, denoting winter, probably preserves an older meaning, when hayana was used to denote the second of the two seasons (summer and winter) into which Dr. Schrader believes that the year was primevally divided. Some of the synonyms for the year in Sanskrit originally denoted particular season, e.g. Varṣa, śarad. Samā and Hāyana may be similarly supposed to have been derived from the names of the half year or ayana. )
When ayana thus became hayana, Āgrayaṇa, which all lexicologists derive from agra + ayana (• This derivation would give us Agrāyana instead of Āgrayaṇa and and native grammarians obtain the second form from the first by the interchange of the initial vowel with the following long a.), would be changed into agra + hayana = āgrahayaṇa ; and when hayana was changed to hayana in a manner analogous to the words 10 the Prajnādi list (Paq. v. 4. 38) as stated above, āgrahayaṇa would be altered into āgrahāyaṇa. We can thus account for the double forms- hayana and hāyana, āgrahayaṇa and āgrahāyaṇa which we find given in Böhtlingk and Roth’s and other lexicons; while if we accept Paṇini’s derivation, hayana will have to be either thrown out as incorrect or derived otherwise.
ln Amara ii. 8. 59, hayana occurs as a different reading for ḍayana in the sense of a vehicle and Bhānu Dīkṣita derives it from hay to go; but we might as well ask if hay, ay, and i, all meaning to go, are not the different forms of the same root. As far as the form of the word is concerned we may therefore derive hāyana from hayana and the latter again from ayana and similarly āgrahāyana from āgrahayaṇa and this again from Āgrayaṇa
I may, however, remark that the process which appears so simple according to the modern philological rules, was not recognized by the native grammarians. There are good many words in Sanskrit which can be thus easily derived on the principle of the insertion and omission of h.(5) Thus we have invakā and hinvakā both meaning the stars on the top of Mr̥gaśiras, and aṭṭa and haṭṭa denoting a marketplace. But native grammarians, including Pāṇini, would not derive the words from each other, as we have done above in the case of ayana and hayana. Their method is to give two different roots for the two words, thus we have two Vedic roots hinva and inva or hiv and iv, both meaning to go, to please, the one giving us hinvaka and the other invaka. Aṭ and haṭ, an and han, ay and hay, i and hi are further instances of the principle adopted by the native grammarians in such cases.
Really speaking this is not solving the difficulty, but only shifting it a stage backwards ; for if any explanation is pecessary to account for the double forms like ayana and hayana, it is equally required to explain why we should have the double roots like ay aod hay, both meaning to go. But it appears that the native grammarians having traced the words to their roots, did not push the matter further.(4) With them ina is derived from i to go, ayana from ay to go, hayana from hay to go, and hayana from na to go.* (* This method sometimes fails, and native grammarians who are not now at liberty to coin new roots, have to resort to the Pr̥ṣodarādi list. For example, we liave two forms ilvalā and hilvalā as different readings for invakā in Amara i. 3. 23. Of these ilvalā can be derived from it, to sleep, though the root meaning is not suitable, but hālvalā cannot be even so derived and Tārānātha in bis Vācaspatya would derive or rather obtain the initial h by Pr̥ṣodarādi. Similarly cf. hintāla = tāla + Pr̥ṣodarādi!)
Whether and how far we can dispose with some of these roots is an important philological question, but it is not necessary for us to discuss it here. It does not much affect the point under discussion whether hāyana is derived from ayana, i. e., ay to go, or from hān to go as Pānipi has done. Etymologically both the words, ayana and hāyana, mean “going” and when both came to be used to denote a division of time, it is natural to suppose that they soon acquired special meanings. Thus while ayana continued to denote the half year; hāyana, which was comparatively a later word, might have been exclusively used to denote the complete year, and as the beginning of the first ayana was also the beginning of the year, ā(a)grayaṇa would be naturally changed inlo ā(a)grahā(a)yaṇa to express the beginning of the year. Whether we adopt Pāṇini’s derivation or the principle of modern philology we thus arrive at the same result, and so far as our present inquiry is concerned we can therefore suppose that the various words, which may be represented by ā(a)gra(ā)yaṇa, or ā(a)grahā(a)yaṇa, are all transformations or derivations of agra + ayana = ā(a)grayaṇa.
Now as regards the meaning it appears to me that ayana at first denoted nothing more than the passage of the sun. Gradually it meant a division of time regulated by such passage. The Agrayaṇa-iṣṭis thus appear to have originally meant the two half-yearly sacrifices performed on the first day of each ayana, which seems to be regarded somewhat like the new year’s day at present. Gārgya Nārāyaṇa, in his commeotary on āshvalāyana’s Shrauta Sūtras (i. 2. 9. 1.) derives Āgrayaṇa from agra + ayana; but interprets it to mean a sacrifice which is followed by eating (ayana,) that is, which requires to be performed before the new harvest is used for domestic purposes. He thus takes ayana to mean eating, and as the āgrayaṇeṣṭis in later works like Manu (iv. 27) were described as “ New-harvest sacrifices," all commentators have adopted this explanation of the word. But it appears to me to be evidently of later origin and invested to account for the nature of the sacrifice when owing to the falling back of seasons, the āgrayaṇeṣṭis came to be performed not at the beginning of each ayana as they should have been, but at wrong times. The necessity of such an explanation must have been still more keenly felt, when instead of two half yearly sacrifices, the Āgrayaṇaiṣtis were performed thrice a year. āshvalāyana, it is true, gives only two, one in Vasanta and the other in śarad, the old beginnings of the Devayāna and the Pitr̥yāna and the real commencement of the two ayanas But he has mentioned three kinds of grain that may be used, vrīhi, śyāmāka and yava (i. 2. 9. 1,) and his commentator Gārgya Narayaṇa observes that yava and skyāmāka are to be used simultaneously in śarad (i.2. 9. 13). It appears, however, that the fact, that three kinds of grain were sanctioned for use, soon gave rise to three Āgrayaṇa-iṣṭis - one in Vasanta with vrīhi ; the second in Varṣā with śyāmāka, and the third in śarad with yava. But that it is a practice of later origin is evident from a passage in the Taittirīya Saṁhitā (v. 1.7.3) which states that “twice is grain cooked for the year,” clearly meaning thereby that there were only two Āgrayaṇa-iṣṭis in a year when the new harvest was first offered to gods. I am therefore of opinion that originally there were only two half-yearly sacrifices at the commencement of each ayana, and as vrīhi was used, on the occasion of the first of these iṣṭis, the word ayana or hāyana naturally came to denote the grain so used, and that ayana in Āgrayaṇa originally meant not eating as the later writers have imagined, but a half-year as the word usually denotes. This way of deriving and explaining the word is not a new invention. For notwithstanding the fact that Āgrayaṇa and āgrahāyaṇa are explained by Tārānātha as referring to the sacrifice of grain and eating, yet he derives Āgrayaṇa, a word of the same group, from agra + ayana and explains it to mean that “the Uttarāyaṇa was in its front."* (* See Vācaspatya s. v. Āgrayaṇa.) Even native scholars thus appear to be aware of the fact that āgrayaṇa could be or was derived from ayana meaning the Uttarāyaṇa. Indeed, we cannot otherwise account why the āgrayaneshtis were originally celebrated at the beginning of Vasanta and the end of Varṣā as stated by Ashvalāyana. The Agrahāyaṇī of Amara is thus traceable to Āgrayaṇī of the Vedic works; and perhaps it was the initial long vowel in the latter that might have been retained in the later form.
It may, however, be asked if there is any evidence to show that Āgrayaṇa was used to denote a star in the Vedic works. That Amara, and long before him Pāṇini, understood Agrahāyaṇī, if not āgrahāyaṇa, to mean the Nakṣatra of Mr̥gaśiras is undoubted ; and I think we might fairly infer therefrom that the meaning given by these writers must have come down to them traditionally. Every ayana must begin with some Nakṣatra, and it is quite natural to suppose that Āgrayaṇa must have gradually come to depote the star that rose with the first ayana. But I have not been able to find out a passage where Āgrayaṇa is used in the Vedic works to expressly denote the constellation of Mr̥gaśiras. I may, however, refer to the Taittirīya Saṁhitā (vi. 4. 11. 1.) wherein the vessels (grahas) used for sacrificial purposes are mentioned as beginning with Āgrayaṇa and considering the fact that two other vessels are named, as the words themselves denote, after the planets Shukra and Manthin, we might suppose that Āgrayaṇa came to be included in the list, not as the name of a deity, for it was not such a name, but as denoting, the star which commenced the year, or the half-year. (• See infra Chap. VII. In Taitt. San. iii. 1. 6, 8 the vessel is described as the vessel of Āgrayaṇa, thus shewing that the vessel was named after āgrayaṇa, which must therefore be either the name of a deity or of a Nakṣatra.) The word graha which in the sacrificial literature denotes vessel has been used in later astronomical works to denote the planets, the number of which, including the sun and the moon, is fixed at nine, the same as the number of the vessels used for sacrificial purposes.(5) It is not, therefore, improbable that Āgrahāyaṇī or āgrahāyaṇa of the later writers was a transformation of Āgrayaṇa, and that Mr̥gaśiras, was so called in old times for sacrificial purposes. When the Āgrayaṇeṣṭis lost their primary meaning, Āgrayaṇī or Āgrahayaṇa naturally came to to be used more to denote the month when the sacrifice was performed than the Nakṣatra at the beginning of the dyana, thus giving rise to the speculations previously discussed. But in whatever way we may explain the disappearance of Āgrayaṇa in the sense of Mr̥gaśiras in the oldest Vedic works, the fact that in the days of Amara and long before him of Pāṇini Āgrahāyaṇī was used to denote the constellation of Orion remains unshaken, and we may safely infer therefrom that the meaning given by them was a traditional one.
Antelope head
We have already seen how legends gathered round the “antelope’s head.” It was the head of Prajāpati wishing to violate his daughter, by which some understood the dawn, some the sky and some the star Aldebaran (Ait. Br. iii 33). Others built the story of Namuchi upon the same which placed Vr̥tra, at the doors of hell; while a third class of legend-makers considered that the death of Prajāpati was voluntary for the sacrificial purposes of the Devas. The following summary of the classical traditions about the death of Orion, taken from Dr. Smith’s smaller Classical Dictionary, will show how strikingly similar they are to the old Vedic legends.
“The cause of Orion’s death is related variously. According to some, Orion was carried off by Eos (Aurora), who had fallen in love with him ; but as this was displeasing to the gods, Artemis killed him with an arrow in Ortygia. (• Homer Od. v. 121. 4. See Gladstone’s Time and Place of Homer, p. 214.) According to others, he was beloved by Artemis and Apollo †(+ Ov, Fast v, 537.) indignant at his sister’s affection for him, asserted that she was unable to hit with her arrow a distant point which he showed her in the sea. “She thereupon took aim, the arrow hit its mark, but the “mark was the head of Orion, who was swimming in the sea. A third account, which Horace follows, states that he offered violence to Artemis, and was killed by the goddess with one of her arrows.”
Thus love, arrow and decapitation which are the three principal elements in the Vedic legends, are all present in these traditions. There is another story which says that Orion was stung to death by a scorpion ; but this is evidently intended to represent the fact that the constellation of Orion sets when that of Scorpion rises in the east, and is therefore of later origin when the zodiacal signs were adopted by the Greeks.(4)
There are other traditions which point out the position of Orion in the course of the year. The cosmical setting of the constellation was believed to be an indication of stormy weather and the constellation was called imbrifer or acquosus in the same way as the Shva in the Vedas is said to commence the year, while Shunāsīrau are invoked along with Parjanya for rain. The German traditions are, however, more specific, and I take the following abstract of the same by Prof. Kuhn communicated to the late Dr. Rājendralāl Mitra and published by the latter in his " Indo-Aryans," Vol. II., pp. 300-302 :
“Both in our ancient and modern popular traditions, there is universally spoken of the Wild Hunter, who some times appears under the name of Wodan or Goden, and was, in heathenish times, the supreme god of the ancient German nations. This god coincides, both in character and shape with the ancient Rudra of the Vedas (vide p. 99).
Now there is a class of traditions in which this ancient God is said to hunt a stag and shoot at it, just as Rudra in the Brāhmaṇas is represented as shooting at the r̥śya and rohit. The stag in German mythology, is the animal of the god Freyr, who, like Prajāpati, is a god of the sun, of fertility, &c., so that the shot at that slag is to be compared with Rudra’s shooting at the r̥śya = Prajāpati, I have further endeavoured to show that some indications exist in the mediaval penitentials of Germany and England, which give us to understand that at the close of the old year and at the beginning of the new one ( we call that time “ die zwölften” or the twelve days, dvādashāha of the Indians ) there were mummeries performed by the country people, in which two persons seem to have been the principal performers, the one of whom was disguised as a stag while the other was disguised as a hind. Both represented a scene, which must have greatly interested and amused the people, but very much offended the clergy, by its sordid and hideous character; and from all the indications which are given in the text, communicated by me (pp 108.180), we may safely suppose that the chief contents of this representation was the connection of a stag and a hind (or of an old woman ), which was accompanied by the singing of unchaste songs. From English customs at the New Year’s Day, we may also infer that the hunter’s shooting at this pair was even a few centuries ago, nay, is even now, not quite forgotten.(4) Now as the time of the “twelve days” was with our ancestors the holiest of the whole year, and the gods were believed to descend at that 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 Brāhmaṇical and the German traditions are almost fully equal, and I have finally attempted to lay open the idea from which the ancient myth proceeded. According to my explanations, 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 evening and yet re-appeared almost 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 disappears, 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 of storm, Rudra - Wodan.
The relics of the destroyed sun, they seem to have recognised in the brightest constellations of the winter months, December and January, that is, in Orion and the surrounding stars. But when they saw that they had been deceived and the sun reappeared the myth gained the further development of the seed of Prajāpati, from the rempants of which a new Aditya as well as all bright and shining Gods were produced. I have further shown that both Greek astronomy and German tradition proved to be in an intimate relation with the Brāhmaṇical tradition ; for the former shows us, in almost the same place of the celestial sphere, a gigantic hunter (Mr̥gavyādha, Sirius; Orion, the hunter Mr̥gaśiras) ; whilst the latter has not yet forgotten that Saint Hubertus, the stag-killer, who is nothing but a representative of the God Wodan, who had, like Rudra, the power of healing all diseases (the bhiṣaktama 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 beginning of the new one,” and the stag and the hunter had therefore something to do with it. Prof. Kuhn’s explanation does not clear up this point satisfactorily, nor does it give any reason why the festivals were celebrated only during the twelve days preceding the new year. As regards the decay of the sun’s power it must have been observable during the whole season acd does not therefore in any way account for the selection of 12 particular days. As for the dvādashaha of the Indians, it is the period during which a person consecrates himself for a yearly sacrifice and so must naturally precede the commencement of the new year when the annual sacrifice commences, and I have previously shewn that it represents the difference between the lunar and the solar years ; in other words, they were what we may now call the intercalary days added at the end of each year to keep the concurrence of the lunar and the solar measures of time.
The German traditions therefore can be better accounted for, if we suppose that they are the reminiscences of a time when the stag and the hunter actually commenced the year. This also explains why the dog days were considered so important. When Sirius or the dog-star rose with the sun at the beginning of the year, the dog-days, or rather the days when the dog was not visible,(4) were the new year’s days, and as such they were naturally invested with an importance which they never lost. I have already alluded to the passage in the R̥gveda which states that the dog awakened the r̥bhus, or the gods of the seasons, at the end of the year, and this appears to me to be the origin of what are still known as dog-days in the western countries. Owing to the precession of the equinoxes and by neglecting to maintain the correspondence of the seasons the days now fall during a period different from the one they did of old, but such differences we find in all cases where ancient rites or festivals are preserved. The feast of the manes, which the Parsis and the Hindus seem to have commenced together when the summer solstice occurred in the month of Bhādrapada, now no longer coincides with the summer solstice ; but for that reason we cannot say that it might not have occured originally at the summer solstice, especially when the later supposition is supported by other reliable evidence, and gives a better origin of the festival. I am not therefore disposed to accept Prof. Kuhn’s explanation as satisfactory, and am of opinion that the German traditions are the reminiscences of a time when the vernal equinox was in Orion, the hunter. We cannot otherwise account why the mummeries and festivals should have been celebrated during the twelve days at the end of the old and the beginning of the new year.
It will, I think, be evident from this that the Greeks and Germans have preserved the memory of the days when the year commenced with the vernal equinox in Orion. I have previously shown that the Parsi primitive calendar, as fixed by Dr. Geiger, points to the same conclusion. The Parsis, the Greeks, the Germans and the Indians therefore appear to have separated after these traditions were formed and after Orion was figured, and recognised as the Āgrayaṇa constellation. I do do think that any more traditional coincidences are necessary to establish the Aryan origin of the constellation of Orion, as well as its position at the vernal equinox in old days. I shall, however, give one more coincidence which on account of its peculiar nalure is alike interesting and important.
UpavIta of Orion
Aivyaonghana or kusti
In the Greek mythology Orion, after his death as above described, was placed among stars, " where he appears as a giant with a girdle, sword, a lion’s skin, and a club."* (See Smith’s Dictionary of Classical Mythology) Now, if as remarked by Plutarch, Orion is an original Greek name, we should find some traces of these various adjuncts of Orion or at least some of them in the old Iranian and Indian works. Do we so find them ? I think we do, only if we look for them with a little more attention and care, for the transformation is more specific and peculiarly out of the way in this case. In the Vedic works Soma is said to be the presiding deity of the asterism of Mr̥gaśiras. Soma is Haoma with the Parsis. The 26th verse in the Haoma Yasht is as follows:
Frā te Mazdāo barat paurvanim
aivyāonghanem Steher-paesanghem
mainyu-tāstem vanghuhim-
daenim Mazdayasnim.
which has been thus rendered by Mr. Mills in his translation of the Zend Avesta, Part III., in the Sacred Books of the East Series (P. 238 ) :- “Forth has Mazda borne to thee, the star-bespangled girdle, the spirit-made, the ancient one, the Mazda-Yasnian Faith.” Dr. Haug takes paurvanim in the original to mean " leading the paurvas," which latter he believes to be the Persian name for the Pleiades, which is variously written parū, parvah, parvin and parviz. († Dr. Haug’s Essays on the Parsis, p. 182.) This keep-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 reproduction of an Aryan original, (* See Sacred Books of the East Series, Vol. XXXI., Zeqd Avesta, Part III., p. 238.) 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 word 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. Aivyaonghana 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 scriptures, the above verse at once directs our attention to the place where we may expect to find the traces of Orion’s belt in the Indian works, I have before pointed out that Orion or Mr̥gaśiras is called Prajāpati in the Vedic works, otherwise called Yajña. A belt or girdle or a piece of cloth round the waist of Orion or Yajña will therefore be naturally named after him as yajñopavīta, the Brāhmaṇ, or the cloth of Yajña. The term, however, now denotes the sacred thread of the Brāhmaṇs, and it may naturally be asked whether it owes its character, if not the origin, to the belt of Orion. I think it does on the following grounds.
Upavīta of prajApati
The word yajñopavīta is derived by all native scholars from yajña + upavīta; but there is a difference of opinion as to whether we should understand the compound to mean an ‘upavīta for yajña,’ i, e., for sacrificial purposes, or, whether it is the ‘upavīta of yajña.’ The former is not incorrect, but authority is in favour of the latter. Thus the Prayoga-writers quote a smr̥ti to the effect that “the High Soul is termed yajña by the hotr̥s*; this is his upavīta; therefore, it is yajñopavīta.” (* पारिजाते स्मृतिसारे - यज्ञाख्यः परमात्मा य उच्यते चैव होतृभिः। उपवीतं यतोऽस्येदं तस्माद् यज्ञोपवीतकम् ॥) A mantra, which is recited on the occasion of wearing the sacred thread means, “I bind you with the upavīta of yajña;"+ while the first half of the general formula with which a Brāhmaṇ always puts on his sacred thread is as follows: यज्ञोपवीतं परमं पवित्रम् प्रजापतेर् यत् सहजं पुरस्तात् । ( † See Taranatha’s Vāshaspatya s. v. upavīta ; and śāṅkhāyana Gr̥hyasūtra, ii, 2.3, where the mantra is given as follows:— यज्ञोपवीतम् असि। यज्ञस्य त्वा यज्ञोपवीतेनोपनह्यामि। In the Paraskara Gr̥hyasūtra, ii, 2. 11, both these mantras, यज्ञोपवीतं परमं & C., and यज्ञस्य त्वा are given.)
The mantra is not to be found in any of the existing saṁhitās, but is given in the Brahmopaniṣad and by Baudhāyana. This verse is strikingly similar to the verse quoted above from the Haoma Yasht. It says, “yajñopavīta is high and sacred; it was born with Prajāpati, of old.” The word purastat corresponds with paurvanim in the Avesta verse(5) and thus decides the question raised by Dr. Haug, while sahaja,* born with the limbs of Prajāpati, conveys the same meaning as main u-tāstem. (* सहजं स्वभावभूतम् अथवा देहेन्द्रियादिभिः सहोत्पन्नम्। Shankarānanda’s com. on Brabmopaniṣad (MS.).) The coincidence between these verses cannot be accidental, and it appears to me that the sacred thread must be derived from the belt of Orion. Upavīta, from ve to weave, literally means a piece of cloth and not a thread. (+ Ct. Medhātithi on Manu, ii, 44,) It appears, therefore, that a cloth worn round the waist was the primitive form of yajñopavīta, and that the idea of sacredness was introduced by the theory that it was to be a symbolic representation of Prajāpati’s waist-cloth or belt.
Yajñopavīta vs uttarIya
Special positions of uttarIya
In the Taittirīya saṁhitā (ii. 5. 11. 1.) nivīta, prācīnāvita and upavīta, three words which at present denote the position of the sacred thread on the body of a Brāhmaṇ, are defined, but the Mimāṁsakas understand them to apply not to the sacred thread, as we now wear it, but to a piece of cloth or dear-skin(5), which everyone must use at the time of sacrificing. (Cl. Jaiminīya-nyaya-māla-vistāra, iii. 4. 1.अत्र प्रतीयमानं निवीतादिकं वासोविषयं, न त्रिवृत्सूत्रविषयम्। “अजिनं वासो वा दक्षिणत उपवीय” (Taitt. Ara. ii. 1) इत्यनेन सदृशत्वात्। वस्त्रस्य च निवीतं सौकर्याय प्राप्तम्। Taitt. Ara. ii. 1 is the only passage in the Vedic works which fully describes the positions foret &c., and it expressly mentions वास and अजिन, but not सूत्र.) It appears, therefore, that in the oldest times the Brahamans wore a piece of cloth or deer-skin and not a thread.
No Yajñopavīta in upanayana
This conclusion is further strengthened by the fact, that according to the ritual given in the Sūtras, no sacred thread is mentioned in the description of the ceremony of Upanayana (See Tārtadtha’s Vacaspatya s. v. upavīta. Also Aśvalāyana Gr̥hya Sūtra l. 19, 8-10-12, where ajina, mekhalā and daṇḍa are alone mentioned.); while the investiture with the thread is looked upon at present as the principal part of that ceremony. We have still retained a memory of this old practice in the performance of obsequies and at the time of performing sacrifices, when a piece of cloth is worn in addition to the sacred thread. Devala says that out of the three sacred threads to be worn, one is a substitute for the upper garment, thus clearly indicating what the old practice was. (तृतीयम् उत्तरीयाय वस्त्राभावे तद् इष्यते।) But this is not the place to go into these details. It is enough for our purpose to notice that yajnopavīta originally, meant a piece of cloth, and that in the times of the smriti writers, it came to be symbolically represented by the sacred thread, thrice twisted and thrice folded.
Position of Yajñopavīta and uttarIya
There is, however, another difficulty which must be here noticed. The Parsis wear their sacred thread round the waist, while the Brāhmaṇs usually wear it over the left shoulder and across the body, leaving the right arm free (i e., upavīta ). The Parsis may thus be said to wear their sacred thread after the manner of Orion ; but in the case of the Brāhmaṇs, it may be questioned if their manner of wearing the thread corresponds to the position of Orion’s belt.
From the passage in the Taittirīya Saṁhitā referred to above, it will, however, be seen that nivīta (and not upāvita), is the position of the thread there prescribed for all human actions, or, in other words, for doing all ordinary business of life. Nivīta has been defined by all later writers to mean the position of the sacred thread passing around the neck, over both the shoulders and dropping down in front. A reference to Kumārila Bhaṭṭa’s Tantra Vārtika (iii. 4. 2.), will, however, show that nivīta also meant “Lying round the waist,"(5) and Kumārila observes that “tying round the waist is the most convenient position for all kinds of work.”* As the passage is important as a record of now obsolete practice I give it here in the original निवीतं केचिद् गल-वेणिका-बन्धं स्मरन्ति । केचित् पुनः परिकर-बन्धम्। तत्र गलवेणिकाबन्धो युद्धाद् अन्यत्र न प्राप्नोति । परिकरबन्धस्तु सर्वकर्मस्व् अव्यग्रताकरत्वात् प्राप्त इति। The word स्मरन्ति in this passage indicates that the writer had a स्मृति text in his mind.
Madhava in his commentary on the Parāśara Smr̥ti (Cal. Ed., p. 450 ) quotes Kātyāyana and Devala as follows:–
कात्यायनः - पृष्ठवंशे च नाभ्याञ्च यद् धृतं विन्दते कटिम्। तद्धार्यम् उपवीतं स्यान् नातिलम्बं न चोच्छ्रितम्॥
देवलः - स्तनाद् ऊर्ध्वम् अधो नाभेः नैव धार्यं कदाचन ।
I think these verses clearly indicate that the thread must be worn below the breast and above the navel, and going round the whole waist. As the practice has long since been obsolete, the verses have been much misunderstood by later writers. The author of the स्मृत्यर्थसार does, however, clearly state that there are two ways of wearing the thread, first over the shoulder as described in the Taitt, Ara, ii, 1; and ( यद् वा in the original) second as given in the above texts of Kātyāyana and Devala. This view has also been adopted by the author of the संस्कारकौस्तुभ .
Ānandagiri and Govindananda in their commentaries on Shankara’s Bhashya on the Brahmasūtras (iii. 4. 19.), give the same explanation, from which it appears that the Brāhmaṇs, like the Parsis, once wore the thread around the waist, thus literally girding up their loins when they had to do any work. The sacred thread of the Parsis and the Brāhmaṇs thus seems to be a symbolical representation of Prajāpati’s girdle or Orion’s belt in every respect.
The various stages, by which the original piece of cloth round the waist dwindled into a thread, are interesting and instructive from a ceremonial point of view, but not being relevant to the present inquiry, I do not mention them here.
Belt of Orion
But the sacred thread is not the only trace of Orion’s dress that we have retained. A reference to the Upanayana ceremonial will show that we have preserved belt, staff, skin, and all. Every boy, who is the subject of this ceremony, has to wear a mēkhalā or grass cord round his waist, and we still put three knots to this cord just over the navel, as it were, to represent the three stars in the belt of Orion. (* In the Prayoga works we have (and we still do so) मेखलां त्रिरावर्त्य नाभिप्रदेशे ग्रन्थित्रयं कुर्यात्। In the śankhyāyna Grihya Sutra ii, 2.2, we are told that the knots of the mekhalā may be one, three or five, and the commentator adds that the knots should be equal in number to one’s pravanas. The author of the Saṁskāra Kaustubha quotes a smriti to the same effect. But the explanation is unsuited to the frst case, vis., of one knot, and I am inclined to take it to be a later suggestion. )
In the Vājasaneyi saṁhitā 4, 10, we are told that the knot of the mekhalā, when it is worn for sacrificial purposes, is to be tied with the mantra, “you are the knot of Soma,"+ (+ सोमस्य नीविरसि।) which Mahīdhara explains as “a knot dear to Soma ;” but which remembering that we have a similar verse in the Haoma Yasht, may be naturally interpreted to mean the knot of Soma, the presiding deity over the constellation of Orion. Then every boy whose upanayana, or the thread ceremony as it is popularly understood, is performed, must carry with him a stick of the palāśa or the fig-tree and the same passage in the Vājasaneyi Saṁhitā says that for sacrificial purposes the stick (daṇḍa) is to be taken in hand by the Mantra, “O wood ! be erect and protect me from sin till the end of this yajña.” Here again Mahīdhara interprets yajña to mean sacrifice for which the staff is taken up.
Deer skin of Orion
But I think here also we may trace a reference to Prajāpati alias Yajña. The third accompaniment of a newly initiated boy is the deer-skin. Theoretically it is necessary that he should be fully clothed in a deer-skin, but practically we now attach a small piece of deer skin to a silk thread and wear this thread along with the Yajnopavita. Mekhalā, ajina, daṇḍa (the girdle, the skin and the staff) are thus the three distinguishing marks of a newly initiated boy; and what could they mean, except that the boy is made to assume the dress of Prajāpati as far as possible. To become a Brāhmaṇ is to imitate Prajāpati, the first of the Brāhmaṇs. Prajāpati assumed the form of a deer, so the boy is clothed in a deer-skin ; Prajāpati has a girdle round his waist (the belt of Orion), so has the boy his mekhalā with three knots over the navel; and lastly, Prajāpati has a staff, and so the boy must have it too. *
Doubtful etymological speculation of yajJNopavIta
* Dr. Schrader in his Preh. Ant, Ary. Peop., Part iv., Chap. viii., concludes that the primitive dress consisted of a piece of woolen or linen cloth thrown round the shoulders like a mantle, and a girdle. The history of yajñapavīta, the way of wearing it as described in Taitt. Arn. ii. 1., and Orion’s dress, as conceived by the Greeks, point to the same conclusion. I have already alluded to the difficulty of explaining how upavīta, which literally means a cloth, came to denote a thread. If yajñopavīta be taken to have originally meant yajña and upavīta, and yajña be further supposed to have once denoted a girdle this difficulty is removed. Av, yāsto Gk. zostos, Lith, justas, ineaning “girded” point to an original root jos, Av. yangh, from which Gk zonu, Av. aiv yāonghana may be derived (See Ficke’ Indo Germ. Wort ). If we suppose that the root appeared as yaj in Sanskrit and derive yajña from it, like Gk, 2014, we may take yajña to mean a girdle and translate अयज्ञोपवीती कथम् ब्राह्मणः? : (Jābāl, Upa. 5.) by how can a Braman be without a girdle and & cloth.?” If this suggestion de correct, then yajñopavīta must be taken to have meant nothing more than a mantle and a girdle in primitive times and that the primitive people invested Orion with a dress similar to their own. When Orion came to be looked upon as a celestial representation of Prajāpati, Orion’s dress must have attained the sacred character which we find preserved in the sacred thread of the Parsis and the Brāhmaṇs. I, however, know of no passage in the Vedic literature where yajña is used in the sense of a girdle, and hence the above suggestion must be considered a very doubtful. But it may be here mentioned that in Marathi wo use the word jānve to denote the sacred thread. This word is evidently derived from Sk. yajña, Prakrita janno. Perhaps we have retained only he first word of the long compound yajñopavīta.
Lion or deer?
Thus in their Upanayan ceremony the Brāhmaṇs have fully preserved the original characteristic of the dress of Prajāpati or Orion. The Brāhmaṇ baṭu (boy) does not, however, carry a sword as Orion is supposed to do, and the skin used by the boy is deer’s and not lion’s. I cannot account for the first of these differences except on the ground that it might be a later addition to the equipment of Orion, the hunter, But the second might be traced to a mistake similar to that committed in the case of the seven r̥kshas. The word Mriga in the R̥gveda, means according to the Sāyaṇa both a lion and a deer, and I have already referred to the doubts entertained by modern scholars as to the animal really denoted by it. Mrigājina is therefore likely to be mistaken for lions skin. There is thus an almost complete coincidence of form between Orion as figured by the Greeks and the boy whose upanayana is recently performed, and who is thus made to dress after the mapper of Prajāpati. I do not mean to say that a piece of cloth was not worn round the waist before the constellation of Orion was so conceived ; on the contrary, it is more natural to suppose that the ancient people invested Orion with their own dress. But the coincidence of details above given does, in my opinion, fully establish the fact that the sacred character of a baṭu’s dress was derived from what the ancient priests conceived to be the dress of Prajāpati. With these coincidences of details, still preserved, it is impossible to deny that the configuration 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.
Etymology of Orion
And now it may be asked that 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 in front of Orion - Canis Major and Canis Minor, Kuon and Prokuon,* (• See mote on page 119 supra.) Shvan and Prashvan, the Dog and the Fore dog are Aryan both in name 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 transformation or corruption of an ancient Aryan word ? 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 (Arktos) have again been phonetically identified with Sanskrit shuan and r̥kṣas, 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 mythology does not give us any help in the solution of this question. It tells us that a hunter by name Orion was transformed after his death into this constellation which consequently come to be called after him. But this is surely no satisfactory explanation Who is the hunter that was so transformed ? There are many mythological proper names in Greek which can be traced back to their Aryan originals, and why should Orion be not similarly derived ? The story obviously points to the Vedic legends of Rudra, who is said to be still chasing Prajāpati in the heavens. The Vedic legend has fully preserved all the three elements in the story–the hunter Rudra, the dog and the antelope’s head, while the Greeks appear to have retained only the hunter and the dog with nothing to hunt !
But that does not preclude us from discovering the identity of these legends and the question is whether we can suggest a Sanskrit word which will give us Orion according to the already established phonetic rules. I know of no name of Rudra from which Orion can be so derived. But if we look to the names of the constellation of Mr̥gaśiras, we may, I think, in the absence of any better suggestion provisionally derive Orion from Sanskrit Āgrāyaṇa the original of Āgrahāyaṇa; The intial long Ā in Sanskrit may be represented by omega in Greek as in Sk. āma, Gk. Ōmos, Sk. āshu, Gr. Ōkus, and the last word ayāna may become ion in Greek. It is not, however, so easy to account for the dropping of g before r in the body of the word. Comparison of Sk. grāvan which Gk, laos and of Gk. ghrāṇa with Gk. ris, rinos, shews that the change may take place initially, but scholars whom I have consulted think that there is no instance in which it takes place medially between Greek and Sanskrit, though such changes are not rare between other languages as in Old Irish ar, Cymric car, which K. Brugmann derives from* agra. (Comp. Gram., Vol. I, Arts, 518,523. Prof. Max Muller extends the rule to Greek and Latin, see his Lectures on the Science of Language, Vol. II., p. 309, where several other instances are given, For a full statement of the phonetic diffioulties in identifyiog Gk. Orion with Sk. Āgrayaṇa, sec App. to this essay.)
Also com pare Gk. Jakru, Goth. tagy, Old Irish dër, English tear; Latin exagmen, examen, O Ir. Am, from the root aj. I do not feel myself competent to decide the question, and hence must remain content with simply throwing out the suggestion for what it is worth. I have shewn that traditional coincidences clearly establish the possibility of the Aryan origin of Orion, and if I have not hit upon the correct word that does not affect my argument. My case does not, in fact, rest on phonetic coincidences. I rely principally upon certain statements in the Vedic works, which indicate that the vernal equinox was once in Orion, and I wanted to shew- and I think I have shewn it- that there is sufficient evidence in the Greek and Parsi legends to corroborate the statement in the Vedic works about the Phalgunī full-moon being once the first night of the year.
Digression on etymology of Ahuramazda and Ahriman
By the bye it may be here remarked that we can perhaps better account for the ormes Ahuramazda and Ahriman on the theory that the vernal equinox was then in Orion, the winter solstice in Uttarā Bhādrapadā and the summer solstice in Uttarā Phalgunī. The presiding deities of the last two Nakṣatras are respectively Ahir-Budhnya and Aryaman. According to the Avesta belief, which assigns the south to the Gods and the north to the Daevas, Ahir Budhnya, as the regent of the southermost point, would come to be regarded as the supreme ruler of the gods, while Aryaman would be the king of the evil spirits. Therefore we may suppose that the names Ahura Mazda and Ahriman, if not actually derived from these words, were, at least modelled after them. Amongst the names of the Vedic deities Ahir Budhaya is the only word, both the component members of which, are declined as in Ahura Mazda.
Spent Mainyus and Anghra Mainyus is a distinct pair by itself; and besides the difficulty of deriving Ahriman from Anghra Mainyus, there seems to be no reason why Ahriman, if so derived, should be contrasted with Ahura Mazda. (See Thil. Mazd. Relig. by Casartelli, trans, by F.J. Dastur Jamasp Asa, $$ 71, 12, pp. 54-6.)
Parsi mythology has another deity named Airyaman, and as this word is derived from Sanskrit Aryaman, it may be objected that same word cannot be said to have also given the pame for the evil spirit. I do not think that the objection is well founded. Cf. Andra (Sk, Indra) and Verethraghna (Sk. Vr̥trahan) both of which are the names of the same deity in Sanskrit, but one of which has become an evil spirit in the Avesta. But I cannot fully discuss the subject in a note, and not being pertinent to my case, I cannot also do more than merely record here an explanation that may possibly be suggested.
Conclusion
We can now give a reasonable explanation of how Fravarshinam came to be the first month in the primitive Parsi calendar and why Dathusho should have been dedicated to Din (creator) .
The mummeries and festivals amongst the Germans can also be more satisfactorily accounted for, while above all, the form the dress and the traditions of Orion may be now better traced and understood. I have already in the previous chapter shown that even the Vedic legends, especially those in the later works, can be simply and naturally explained on the assumption we have made regarding the position of the equinoxes in the days of the R̥gveda. The hypothesis on which so many facts, legends, and traditions can be so naturally explained, may, in the absence of a better theory, be fairly accepted, as correct without more proof. But in the present case we can go still further and adduce even direct evidence, or express Vedic texts, in its support.
In the chapter on the Kr̥ttikas, I have drawn attention to the remarks of Prof. Max Mūller who objected to the conclusion based entirely on the Vedanga Jyotiṣa on the ground that no allusion to the position of the Kr̥ttikas was to be found in the Vedic hymns. We can now account for this silence ; for how can the hymns, which appear to be sung when the sun was in Orion at the beginning of the year, contain any allusion to the period when the vernal equinox fell in the Kr̥ttikas?(5) This could have been easily perceived if, instead of confining to the controversy about the position of the Kr̥ttikās and endeavouring to find out if some clue to the date of the Veda could be oblained from the determination of the original number and source of the Nakṣatras, scholars had pushed their inquiries further back and examined the Vedic hymns in the same critical spirit.
It would not have been difficult in that case to discover the real meaning of the Vedic verse which states that “the dog awakened the r̥bhus at the end of the year.” I have in a previous chapter already referred to the verses in the R̥gveda regarding the position of Yama’s dogs and the death of Namuchi. These passages, as well as the description of Vr̥ka or the dog-star rising before the sun after crossing the eternal waters, the terminus of the Devayāna (Rig. i. 105. 11.), sufficiently iudicate the position of the equinoxes in those days. In the next chapter I propose to discuss and examine two other important passages from the R̥gveda, which directly bear out the statement in the Taittirya saṁhitā with which we have started, vis., that the Phalguni full-moon commenced the year at the winter solstice in days previous to those of the Taittirya Saṁhitā and the Brāhmaṇa.