Ancient calendars and constellations

by Emmeline M. Plunket

To explain this legend, Wilson makes other suggestions. He writes:[66] “The legend of his (Agni’s) hiding in the waters, through fear of the enemies of the gods, although alluded to in more than one place, is not very explicitly related ... the allusions of the Súktas (hymns) may be a figurative intimation of the latent heat existing in water, or a misapprehension of a natural phenomenon which seems to have made a great impression in later times—the emission of flame from the surface of water either in the shape of inflammable air, or as the result of submarine volcanic action.”

[66] Wilson, Rig Veda, Introduction, vol. i. p. xxx.

It cannot but be admitted that these myths are puzzling, and that to account for the notion so prominent throughout the Vedas of “Agni in the waters,” the various suggestions of “lightning,” “latent heat existing in water,” “the emission of flame from the surface of the waters, either in the shape of inflammable air or as the result of submarine volcanic action,” are inadequate to explain the fact that Agni, whose very name “is the regular designation of fire”[67] should in the hymns be so closely associated with water. Nor are the difficulties concerning “Agni in the waters” to be overcome by the tempting and poetic suggestion, put forward by some writers, that in these passages reference is made to the sun rising in the morning out of the ocean, and again hiding itself beneath the waves at sunset. The composition of the Rig Veda is attributed to Aryan settlers “scattered over the Punjaub and regions lying to the west of the Indus”: by such settlers the sun could never have been seen rising out of the ocean, for no ocean bounded their horizon on the east. Even the phenomenon of the sun hiding itself at evening in the water, could only have been observed by those who lived on the western coast, and it is therefore not easy to imagine why sunrise and sunset should in India have been so closely and constantly associated with a sea horizon.

[67] Macdonell, Vedic Mythology, p. 88.

But if once the acquaintance of the originators of the Agni myths with the Zodiacal figures is admitted, the astronomic interpretation of those relating to Agni in the waters is not difficult; it is as follows:

Agni is the personification of fire, but his chief personification is as the fire of the sun. “Agni in the waters” is especially the fire of the sun in the celestial waters of Aquarius. 3,000 B.C. the sun was in conjunction with Aquarius at the time of the winter solstice.[68] Those hymns therefore which dwell upon the myths of Agni hiding himself in, being born in, and rising out of the waters, may be considered as hymns referring to the sun at the winter solstice in conjunction with the constellation Aquarius, and therefore as hymns especially suitable for use on the occasion of a great yearly festival held at that season of the year.

[68] The position of the sun at the winter solstice 3,000 B.C. was identical with that represented at [Plate XI.] as the position of the full moon at the summer solstice.

European writers often describe the mid-winter sun as hiding itself, or as every day withdrawing itself more and more from view. In poetic similes, the snows of winter often crown the head of the aged out-going year, while the in-coming year is represented as a babe or infant. The appropriateness of such similes is due to the fact, that our calendrical new year is fixed within a few days of the winter solstice. Again, in sober prose, the sun at the time of the winter solstice is said, having attained its lowest point, to rise or begin its upward course on the ecliptic. It is therefore not difficult to understand how the Vedic Rishis, who appear to have combined the characteristics of poets and of scientific observers of the heavens, should have 3,000 B.C. described the fire of the solstitial sun, as hiding in, being born in, and rising out of the celestial waters of the constellation Aquarius.

In this Agni myth, as in that of Indra, we may perceive traces of a pre-Vedic origin. The latitudes in which the Rig Veda was composed are not those in which attention is forcibly drawn to the diminution of the strength and visibility of the sun at the winter season. In the Rig Veda, however, Indra’s conquest over darkness as well as over drought is celebrated, and the same traditional cause may be assigned for the description of Agni hiding himself at the time of the winter solstice in the waters of Aquarius.

Indra, Soma, and Agni no longer hold the important place in the Hindu Pantheon which they appear to have held in Vedic times, and on the astronomic theory, this fact may partly be accounted for by noticing how slow but inevitable changes in the scenery of the heavens, produced by the precession of the equinoxes, gradually obscured more and more completely the meaning of the imagery employed in the hymns to these deities. Indra, if he represents the summer solstice, is indeed still as powerful as ever, and still triumphs over the demon of drought, but no longer is that demon well represented by the snake-like constellation Hydra; for on the night of the summer solstice, after the sun has set, the whole of Hydra is still above the horizon. No longer does the mid-summer full moon bathe its brightness in the celestial waters of Aquarius, nor does the mid-winter sun hide itself in them. The hymns remain, the phenomena they referred to, exist no longer.