Page:Durga Puja - With Notes and Illustrations.djvu/17

 the heavens stands the constellation Leo almost as far removed from Virgo upwards as the Centaur is downwards, Virgo, Virgin, is the Devi, Centaur is the Demon Mahisasura, and Leo, the Devi's Lion.

Some have supposed her to be the planet Venus, the beauty of heaven, while others have taken her for the fair harvest moon of autumn; but the fixed lady Virgo can not be properly identified with these moving male luminaries of the Hindu Sastras. The moon is called the lord of stars (tarapati), while Venus is known as the beauty of the stars (tarasundari). The festival of the harvest moon takes place on the full moon of Isa (Asvina), but that of the Virgin commences on the pratipada, the first day after the new moon. It does not therefore appear reasonable to suppose her as identical with the moon from the epithet Umasasi or moon-like Uma by way of comparison.

Durga otherwise called Kanya or Kumari as has been premised above is identical with Virgo, the Zodiacal sign of the autumnal equinox in the solar month of September, reckoned as the initial moment of one of the Hindu system of years from the sun's progression or declination to the southern hemisphere, the region of the Demons. She is also the sign of the earth's position in the vernal equinox of Chaitra or more accurately Madhu, when the sun is situatesituated [sic] in its opposite sixth sign of Pisces, which also divides the annual circle into two hexamensic periods. Hence the point of ascension of the sun from the southern to the northern hemisphere in the vernal equinox as well as that of his descension or declination from the upper to the lower