Page:Durga Puja - With Notes and Illustrations.djvu/21

 and hence the month Asvina named after the phenomenon. Do these two represent the Kartikeya and Ganesa of the Bengal pratima of Durga, and does the twin star Bharani, for it is in the Vedas sometimes spoken of as the plural Bharanyas, represent Lakshmi and Sarasvati, as supporting (Bharana means to support) the corporeal and intellectual existence. But Bharani is figured as the Yoni or pudendum muliebre, and is formed as a triangle, the southernmost of which is the junction star and its divinity is Yama. It is therefore difficult to prove that the Puranas viewed it, against the text of the Vedas, only in its meaning of supportress, for the Puranas as a rule do not contradict the Vedas. Or do the two scales of Libra represent the twin sisters Lakshmi and Sarasvati. Or the latter the goddess of Krittika or more properly the Krittikas the six stars of the Pleiades, whose regent is Agni. The allegory could be pursued a little further, and the ten arms of Durga could be said to stand for the ten signs of the zodiac, which lie on both sides of the constellation. But is it not too much to suppose that the authors of the Vedas, who hymned the praise of the Autumnal and Vernal Festivals, were so intimately acquainted with the motions and positions of the heavenly bodies, when even the very names of most of them do not occur in their books? The Vedas present no evidence of even the existence of the system of asterisms, indeed it is remarkable how little notice is taken of the stars by the Vaidic poets, even the recognition of some of the luminaries as planets i. e. those which change their position in the heavens with regard to the fixed stars does not appear to have occurred until considerably