1868.] Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 237. 



the hunter's shooting at this pair was even a few centuries ago, nay is 

 even now. not quite forgotton. 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 brahmanical and 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 com- 

 mon Indo-European ancestors believed that the sun and daylight 

 (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, as in Northern Germany during the time 

 of the twelve days, is seldom to be seen, the heaven 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 =. Wo dan. 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 

 the Orion and the surrounding stars. But when they saw that they 

 had been deceived and the sun re-appeared, the myth gained the further 

 development of the seed of Prajapati, from the remnants of which a 

 new Aditya as well as all bright and shining gods were produced. I 

 have further shewn that both Greek astronomy and German tradition 

 prove to be in an intimate relation with the brahmanical tradition ; for 

 the former shows us, in almost the same place of the celestial sphere, 

 a gigantic hunter (mrigavyadha = Sirius ; Orion, the hunter = mri- 

 gaciras) ; whilst the latter has not yet forgotten that Saint Hubertus, the 

 stag-killer, who is nothing but a representative of the god Wodan, 

 had, like Rudra, the power of healing all diseases (the " bhishak- 

 tama" of the Yedas), and particularly possessed cures for mad dogs, 

 which not only were his favourite companions, but were also in near 

 connexion with the hottest season of the year, when the declining of 

 the sun begins, the so called dog- 



