Page:Durga Puja - With Notes and Illustrations.djvu/20

 instituted in honor of the Virgin. In later days the enlightened observers of the heavens and of the motion of the heavenly bodies discovered the more important phenomenon of the motion of the sun in the ecliptic, and found that the constellation Virgo, one of the many groups into which they had triangulated the space of the heavens, fell within the track of the sun. And having discovered this they fell upon the practice of worshipping Virgo at such a time when the most important luminary the sun was in it.

The Hindu constellation Virgo as being composed of Hasta, Chitra and a portion of Svati, consists of Corvus, Virgo, and Bootes of the Western astronomers. Hasta is identified with a. b. c. d. of Corvus, which is situated a little towards the south-west extremity of the constellation Virgo, and by calculation it has been determined that the Equator passed through it in B. C. 2350, the Equator of A. D. 560, however passed a little towards the north of Chitra, a. Virginis. In the autumnal festival therefore the bodhana or the arousing of the goddess Virgin i. e. the moment of the sun's leaving Leo in order to embrace Virgo should be commenced earlier. The Autumnal Equinox in A. D. 560, happened accordingly much closer to Chitra, the asterism proper of Virgo than in B. C. 2350.

The Puranas might have added the worship of the twin-stars Asvini, b. c. Arietis, the Castor and Pollox of the Greeks, in which the sun enters when the constellation Virgo commences to rise in autumn evenings. At the time these two stars were discovered they formed the asterism of the lunar mansion that is the junction of Isa (ancient Asvina)