Page:Durga Puja - With Notes and Illustrations.djvu/18

 constitute the beginning of the two equinoctial years of the Hindus and count as the periods for worshipping Virgo, Virgin, Kumari, the Devi. This two-fold division of the Hindu year with reference to the heliacal rising and setting of the constellation has its counterpart in the alternate predominance of darkness and light, night and day, in the diurnal revolution of the sun, to which the Dakshinayana and Uttarayana of the Hindu astronomer have been likened. In the diurnal revolution of the starry heaven the group of the three constellations Virgo, Centaur and Leo is almost invisible at night in autumn, and Kanya, Virgo, following upon Leo, the lion, obscures the next constellation Centaur by the brilliancy of the sun, to whom Virgo might be said to be married. It would not perhaps be too violent to suppose that the group of the three figures worshipped in the autumnal festival is the clay representation of the astronomical phenomenon of bright heavenly luminaries. But why should a similar group be worshipped in the spring season and why is the latter regarded as the older of the two season festivals? Is it because the constellations of Leo, Virgo and Centaur are visible in the evenings of spring when the sun is in the opposite sign of the zodiac? Such a supposition may be compatible with the present advanced state of astronomical knowledge, but how did the ancient Hindus, who had not made such progress in astronomy, seize the idea? As the position of the sun in Virgo in autumn led to the autumnal festival, so the position of the earth, it might be supposed, in (Virgo) the sign opposite to Aries led to the revival of the same festival in spring. The festival in autumn continues for a period of ten days