The Vedic fathers of geology

(ZEOLOGICAL ANTIQUITY OF THE VEDAS. 27

yernal equinox was in the constellation of Mriga or Orion (about 4,500 B. C.), during the period of the Vedic hymns, and that it had receded to the constellation of the Kaittikas, or the Pleiades (about 2,500 B. C.) in the days of the Brahmanas.” He further states in his very interesting work The Arctic Home in the Vedas that, “ the subsequent discovery,’ by his friend the late Mr. 8. B. Dixit, “of a passage’ in the Shatapatha Brahmana, plainly stating that the Krittikas never swerved in those days, from the due Eust, that is, the Vernal Equinox, has served to dispel all lingering doubts regarding the age of the Brahmanas ; while another Indian astronomer, Mr. Y. B. Ketkar, in a recent number of the Jonrnal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, has mathematically worked out the statement in the Taittiriya Brahmana, (III. 1,1, 5 ).” (Vide Mr. Tilak’s Arctic Home in the Vedas. Preface. pp I. II. )

I here give below, the text from the Taittiriya Brahmana, and this purports to mean that, “ Brihaspati or the planet Jupitor was first discovered when confronting or nearly occultine the Star Tishya”

५ एताः (कृत्तिका ) हवे प्राच्यै दिदो न च्यवन्ते । सर्वाणि

हवा अन्यानि नश्चत्राणि प्राच्यै दिरदाश्चचवन्ते । (या ब्ना०

२-१-२३):