uld like to
express here my keen realization of the many blunders and omissions
I have probably made in the course of the present investigation,
which carried me, reluctantly, into fields of research where I felt
myself to be a stranger. In view of the disadvantages under which I
have labored, under pressure of time and a frequent inability to
obtain all the books I wished to consult, I rely upon the leniency
of specialists and upon their kindly communicating to me the faults
they detect, so that I may avoid them in future publications.

121 "The Century Dictionary has a theory as to the origin of the idea of
a Bear for the seven stars, doubtless from its editor, Professor
Whitney, that seems plausible, at all events scholarly. It is that
their Sanscrit designation, Riksha, signifies, in two different
genders, 'a bear' and 'a star,' 'bright' or 'to shine;' hence a
title, the Seven Shiners,--to that it would appear to have come, by
some confusion of sound of the two words, among a people not
familiar with the sound" (p. 424). "Later on Riksha was confounded
with Rishi, and so connected with the Seven Sages or Poets of India.
Al Biruni devoted a chapter of his work on India to the seven stars
[of Ursa Major] known as Saptar Shayar, the seven Anchorites"
(Allen). I draw attention here to the curious fact that the Sanscrit
verb to see=iksh is nearly homonymous with riksha and that
therefore, in Sanscrit, the association of a star with the
eye=akshan, that sees=iksh, must have been a very close one and
suggested the employment of the eye as a symbol for star. In
connection with the Sanscrit riksha it is curious to note that, in
Japanese, riki means power, viz., jin-riki-sha=man--power-wagon; and
hasha or rinsha=wagon or wain. The following extract from one of the
hymns in the oldest Veda, the Brahmana, which "mark the beginning of
the philosophical creed of the Vedic period," is particularly
significant when compared, not only with the preceding association
of Ursa Major with the seven sages of India, but also with Plato's
cosmological doctrines: "I have beheld the Lord of Men," one poet
writes, "with seven sons, of which delightful and benevolent [deity]
who is the object of our invocation, there is _an all-pervading
middl