That the sacred thread – Yajnopavita among the Hindus and Kushti among the Parsis – is the sign of the constellation Orion’s belt, underlines its supreme significance among ancient and modern Aryans. Its mention in Vedic literature inspired the Sanskrit scholar Lokmanya Tilak to use it to fix the date of that early period of history – a task neither Yaska nor Sayana could think of. A unique and definitive study of the subject, it casts interesting new ...