CHAPTER VI.

THE YEAR OF THE HORSE'S HEAD OF ELEVEN MONTHS AND ELEVEN-DAY WEEKS.

THE period I have now reached in this historical survey of primæval history is that represented in Indian mythological history by the worship of the horse's head, called in the Rigveda Dadhiank. This is the horse's head which was originally placed on the roofs of all houses in Gothic lands, after the sacrifice to Odin of the horse to which the head belonged. This is still carved in wood and affixed to the principal gables of houses in the Lithuanian and Gothic provinces of Mecklenburgh, Pomerania, Lüneberg and Holstein 1. This horse-sacrifice was also offered by the Mordvinian Ugro Finns of the Volga, the conquering races who succeeded the sons of the ass of the cycle-year, and first brought the horse to South-western Asia to supersede the wild ass, which, as we have seen, drew the year-car of the Ashvins, and which drew the chariots of the early Assyrian kings 2. At the Mordvinian horse-sacrifice, according to a description of it by an eye-witness at the end of the 16th century, the Italian traveller Barbaro, the horse was tied by the neck to the sacrificial stake in the sacrificial pit, a survival of the ritual of the Pitaro Barishadah of the age of the Trigarta sacrifices, and killed with arrows. Its skin was then torn off and the flesh eaten. The skin, stuffed with straw, was lifted to the top of the sacred tree of the sacrificial ground, and adorned with rags and ribbons 3. The

I

Baring Gould, Strange Survivals and Superstitions on Gables, pp: 38–41.

2 Maspero, Dawn of Civilisation, Egypt and Chaldæa, p. 770.

3 Max Müller, Contributions to the Science of Mythology, vol. ii. p. 469.

History and Chronology of the Myth-Making Age. 295

head of this year-horse sacrificed at the beginning of the year symbolised its course, and was replaced at the end of the year by that of the horse sacrificed to consecrate the next year. This was the head found, according to the Rigveda i. 84, 13, 14, by Indra in the Ṣharyanāvān, the ship (nāva) of the arrow (sharya), the arrow of the year of three seasons, marked by its feathers, shaft and barb. It was this new conception of the year, a revival of the arrow-year of Orion, which superseded and destroyed the cycle-year; and it was with the bones of the head of the sun-horse Dadhiank, called in the Tait. Brah. i. 5, 8, the ten-head breaking (Shiro-bhida) spells (mantrah) of Atharva, Dadhiank's father, the sun-god of the Atharvans or sun-priests, that Indra slew the Vritra or worshippers of the encircling-snake, called the ninety-nine1. This number proves clearly that the year-god slain was the god of the three-years cycle, for the new year of the head of the sun-horse was, as we shall see, one of eleven months of thirty-three days each, and especially consecrated to the thirty-three gods; hence the ninety-nine false year-gods overthrown by Dadhiank's bones are those of three years measured by the year-reckoning of the thirty-three gods of the new ritual order, that is the gods of the three years of the cycle-year. The field of battle was the centre of the land of Kuru Kshetra, where, as I have shown in Chapter II. p. 26, the world's tree grew up from the southern-mud (tan) to be the Pole Star tree of the Kurus, the mid-tree of the world's village grove. It was here where Parasu Rāma, the god of the double-axe of the three-years cycle, had slain the Haihayas; that Indra, according to the scholiast on the Veda, found the conquering horse's head near the sacred lake of Tan-eshur, that of the god Tan 2. It was then consecrated to Staneshvara, the gnomon-pole of Sthanu, the leader, after Bhrigu their father, of the eleven Rudras, the gods ruling this year 3.

1

2

Rg. vi. 16, 14, i. 84, 13; Ludwig, Rigveda, vol. v. p. 27.

Cunningham, Ancient Geography of India, Staneshvara, p. 335.

3 Mahabharata Adi (Sambhava) Parva, lxvi. p. 188.

The Atharvans, priests of the sun-god of the horse's head, are the successors in the priestly genealogy of the Añgiras and Navagvas, the priests of the nine-days week, and their genealogical line of descent from Bhrigu, the first of the Budras, is given in the Rigveda as that of the Bhrigus, Añgiras, Navagvas, Atharvans1. That is to say, the first in the sacerdotal genealogy were the Bhrigus, worshippers of the household fire; secondly, the Añgiras or officers of burnt-offerings in the age of the six-days week; thirdly, the Navagva priests of the cycle-year with its nine-day weeks; and lastly, the Atharvans, the priests of the sun-horse, the fire-god Athar (Zend Atar), also known as Atri, the devouring (ad) three (tri) 2. This name marks the year as descended from the early year of three seasons, which had been that of the sun-deer.

A. The genealogy of the sun-god with the horse's head and the ritual of his worship.

We find this line of descent expressly declared in the story of the sun-god Sigurd, the god of the pillar (urdr) of Victory (Sig), for it was from Hinda-fjall, the hill of the deer (hinda), that Sigurd started to run his annual course through the heavens on his sun-horse Grāni, given to him by Grip, the seizing dog, the star Sirius ruling the year of the six-days week beginning at the summer solstice. His year's journey began after he had killed Fafnir, the snake-god of the three-years cycle, and gained possession of his treasures and the insignia of the sun-god of the year: (1) The helm of aweing, the night-cap of invisibility given to Perseus, born in the tower of the three-years cycle; (2) the golden impenetrable mail worn by Karna and Achilles; and (3) the golden year-ring, that given by Dushmanta to Sakuntalā, and with which Sigurd wedded Brunhilda, the Valkyr or bird-mistress of the springs (brünnen),

when he found her asleep on the top of the hill whence he was to set forth on his year's circuit of the heavens 1.

The Atharva priests of the sun-god, the third in succession of the Indian priestly lines of the Bhrigus, Añgiras and Atharvans, were the counterparts in Indian ritualistic history of the Jewish Kohathites or prophet-priests headed by Aaron, meaning the Chest, who was appointed to be the speaking-prophet to Moses, as the wearer of the priestly ephod which revealed the counsels of God 2. Their predecessors were, as I have shown elsewhere, the sons of Gershom, answering to the Añgiras, and those of Merari, answering to the Bhrigus 3.

These, called Athravans by the Zends, were the itinerant preaching-priests said, in the Din Yasht, to have been sent forth to preach the law of the holy Chest, the inspired teachings revealed to them by the Bhang or Hashish, of which I have spoken in Chapter IV. p. 1714. These teachers became the national official historians, for, as we are told in the Upanishads, the Atharvas and Añgiras were the authors of the Itihasa Purāna or national histories surviving in the Mahabharata, Harivansa, Ramayana, the Shah Nameh, the poems combined to form the Kalevala, the Greek and Roman historical myths, the mythological Sagas of Scandinavia and Iceland, and the endless series of local historical legends. We are told in Buddhist records that the knowledge of these national histories was an essential part of the instruction instilled into the mind of every Brahmin, and they were also known by every Druid 5. They were recited at the annual festivals marking the changes of the year, and especially

Hewitt, Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times, vol. ii., Essay viii., pp. 117-124. 2 Ex. vii. I.

3 Hewitt, Ruling Races of Prehistoric Times, vol. i., Preface, pp. xv.—xvii. 4 Darmesteter, Zendavesta Din Yasht, 17; Ābān Yasht, 86; S.B.E., vol. xxiii. p. 268-74.

5 Rhys David, 'Dialogues of the Buddha from the Nikayas,' iv., Soņadanda Sutta, 114, where it is said that it was necessary for every perfect Brahmin to be a repeater of the legends, that is to know them by heart. Sacred Books of the Buddhists, vol. ii. p. 146.

at the New Year's Festival, a custom which survives in the recitation of the Jewish Thora at the New Year's Feast in the beginning of Tisri (September-October) 1. In the Brahmanas this recitation was ordered to be made by the Hotri, the pourer (hu) of the libations 2, who was the Zend Zaotar, the chanter of the hymns, the speaking-priest 3. The root Hu, whence the name is derived, shows the connection of the office with the cloud-rain-bird Khu. He was the priest of the bird Karshipta, the sun-hawk, who brought the law of Mazda into the Garden of God, and taught the priests who divined by bird-augury to speak the language of birds 4.

The year of the head of the sun-horse Dadhiank is said in the Rigveda to have been imported with the horse's head by the Ashvins, who taught in it the secrets of Tvashtar, the framer of the solstitial year of two seasons. The gods of this year were thirty-three, or three elevens, who accompany the Ashvins to drink madhu or mead 5. Thus it was a year

of eleven months, each of thirty-three days, divided into three weeks of eleven days, a combination of the five and six-day weeks of the years of two and three seasons, so that there were the same number of weeks in the year as there were days in the month. It was the year of the second, in point of time, of the Buddhist historical heavens, called the Tavatimsa, or that of the thirty-three gods ruled by Sakko, the rain (sak) god. They succeeded the gods of the first heaven, the Shatum Maharājika Devaloko, or the hundred angels born from the constellation Argo, the Shatavaĕsa or hundred creators.

This year became the Zend ritualistic year ruled by the "thirty-three gods of the ritual order, who are round about

Max Müller, Chandogga Upanishad, iii. 4, 1, 2; S.B.E., vol. i. pp. 39,

note I, 40.

2 Eggeling, Sat. Brāh., xiii. 4, 3, 2-15; S.B.E., vol. xliv. pp. 361-371. 3 Darmesteter, Zendavesta Vendidad Fargard, v. 58; S. B. E., vol. iv. p. 64, note I.

4 Ibid., ii. 42; West, Bundahish, xix. 16; S. B. E., vol. iv. p. 21, vol. v. p. 70. 5 Rg. i. 117, 22, i. 34, II.