Abstract

The Big Dipper constellation, i.e., the Indian Saptaṛṣis, was formerly known as Ṛkṣa, which also means a bear apart from nocturnal stars in Sanskrit. This paper tries to identify the parallels of Ṛkṣa as bear, mentioned in the oldest extant of the world, i.e., Ṛgveda—1.24.10, with the European Bear constellation in first wave of migration and its trail through Europe into the Americas during second migration. This paper also finds Proto Bear Ceremonialism in Upper Paleolithic Europe and Archeo-Astro-Ethnographic memories via Bear cult at par with the timing of events in the Ṛgveda. This paper also identifies the timing of the separation/dissemination of the word Ṛkṣa from India into Eurasia, i.e., 40,000 BP-56,000 BP, becoming obsolete in India after that.

1. Introduction

Ancient cultures and Humans have been immensely fascinated by the nocturnal skies and often connected the dots of various stars in different ways to have varied graphs of night guides that would help humans in migration or navigation, which eventually led them to understand the seasons and predict the time. With the help of patterns in the sky, sun, and moon, they formulated and understood the year. These formulations of the sky and their fragmentary presence in the form of star lore have long been neglected as a legitimate contribution to comparative mythology in general and also the studies of tribal associations and migrations in particular, avoiding the common denominator. Certain names found in the star lore of Asia parallel those of Eurasia and North America. In this article, I shall consider Ursa Major as the first group for the investigation.

Indian perspective with respect to hunting stars or scenes can be divided into two notable categories — (1) Traditional (Indian Vedic Texts) and (2) Tribal (Gond, Banjara, Kolam and Korku).  Astronomical myths of India similarly focus mainly on the Orion–Taurus complex, the pole star, the Big Dipper and the Milky Way in both Traditional and Tribal cultures. In the tradition, Prajāpati is chasing his daughter (pauraṇic Rohini - Aldebaran) and Prajāpati himself is chased and hunted down by Rūdra for his wrongdoings, as is clearly depicted in Ṛgveda¹

Pic 1. Ursa Major as depicted in Urania's Mirror a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825-Source; Wikipedia

Mayank Vahia^[1] notes some interesting versions in Tribal India,

“Most tribals we studied had a more or less standard view of this region of the sky (Figure 1). They believe that the first four stars of the Big Dipper that form the square is a cot and the three thieves that follow are the three stars out to steal the cot. Gonds insist that to prevent the theft, the old lady who occupies the bed must not sleep. In other words, the Big Dipper should be circumpolar. Due to precession of the Earth, the Bid Dipper was circumpolar in that region till 1000 BC suggesting that the Gond memory of the sky dates to that period. On the other hand, Kolams have no such memory. Korku in fact, explicitly talk of the setting of the Big Dipper when the servants occupying the bed must get up at dawn and start working. On the other hand, Korku explain the non-rectangular nature of the stars of the Big Dipper as a tug by the thieves. They also seem to have noticed that the middle star of the trio is a binary and suggest that the middle thief is carrying a water jar with him. To Banjaras, the cot of the Big Dipper is the cot of a dead person who will then walk on the great path of Milky Way, presumably to salvation.”

1.1 About Great Bear Constellations

We have identified 88 constellations from ancient sky-lores and maps since historical times. One of them is the striking cluster Ursa Major (Latin: “Greater Bear”), also called the Great Bear, in astronomy, a constellation of the northern sky, at about 10^h 40^m right ascension and 56° north declination. Polaris in the Ursa Minor, i.e., Little Dipper, is the pole star of today's time. Polaris is a star in the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Minor and is commonly called the North Star or Pole Star with Right ascension 02^h 31^m 49.09^s and declination +89° 15′ 50.8″. In the northern sky, the duo cluster of stars would look like the images shown in Pic.2

Pic 2: Big Bear and Little Bear Constellation

1.2 Similarities of Bear constellation across the culture

This constellation has served as a northern/northeastern constellation from proto-historic times. It is found in almost every civilization in the form of some exotic creature with which the civilization and culture identified itself. But most civilizations remember its iconography as Bear. Charles Kemp mentions, “Cultures around the world organize stars into constellations or asterisms, and these groupings are often considered to be arbitrary and culture-specific,” wrote the authors of a recent paper^[2] published in Psychological Science. “Yet there are striking similarities in asterisms across cultures, and groupings such as Orion, the Big Dipper, the Pleiades and the Southern Cross are widely recognized across many different cultures.” 

In his research, Yuri Berezkin gives an outline and area distribution of the memory of this cosmic event/hunt pertaining to Orion, Pleiades, and Bear in the form of a mythological motif peculiar to Northern and Central Eurasia. In India, we find its mention in Ṛgveda, Brāhmaṇas, and Purāṇas, etc. He notes an interesting depiction that in the Mundas and Dravidian groups of West Bengal, the Big Dipper is a bed with one broken leg.^[3] He notes the cosmic hunt iconography in the Vedic land, which to me appears to have spread instead from the trans-Himalayas into Eurasia and Northern America through Siberia, etc. (see in Pic 3) or would have grown together in northern India and in some areas of trans-Himalayas. Since the depictions are of hunting scenes, the lores appear to be from neolithic pastoral lives. It becomes pertinent to investigate how human dispersal or migration occurred in the past, which took the words related to the subjective star afar. In the sky lore, the sky elements would remain similar; however, the lore can disintegrate or perish into the suitability of the changing culture due to changes in region or lapse of time, giving birth to a new lore. That is precisely what happened for the name Ṛkṣa in Ṛgveda, which eventually changed into Saptaṛṣis in Ṛgveda.

Yuri Berezkin Fig 1: Area distribution of the Cosmic Hunt takes in the Old and in the New Worlds. For shaded areas data is not available or unprocessed

1.3 Eventual Personification of Bear Constellation into Humans

A similar pattern emerges in the folklores of Central American tribes where the personification of the bear began as a seven brothers and one sister motif, which spread in fourteen tribes from South East of Oklahoma to South West of Saskatchewan. 
Other motifs also exist beyond the parallelogram area between SE and SW Central America. Instances have been recorded in which the seven brothers motif has been shifted to the Pleiades. Among the tribes of America, the versions change similarly to the changes found in Indian tribal motifs. However, some American tribal motifs offer more noteworthy parallels with the change Vedic changes of bear to human. The Hidastas have recorded a story of six brothers and one sister, in which the sister turns into a bear. In another version, the group becomes Ursa Major, and in another, the Pleiades. The most interesting parallel is from Caucasian - Kirghiz-Turko Tatar belt as seven brothers, and the stolen object is the girl from the Pleiades. 

Buryat Harva, Mongolia’s northernmost realm, the lore of seven brothers and one girl is retold, and this continues in some form until North America. This is sincerely the myth of Indian Arundhati (Alcor) from Seven mothers of Kṛttikās (Pleiades) shifting with seven sages Saptaṛṣis (Ursa major), and sharing her seat with her husband Vasiṣṭha (Mizar). Overall, the association of Pleiades is established with the Ursa Major. Instead of seven brothers, we have seven sages, whom we know as Saptaṛṣis, in India, who are the night guides to establish a pole star in the vicinity.

In Ṛgveda, the sense of the term “Saptaṛṣis” is a group of stars, which eventually developed into progenitors and protectors of humankind. These Ursa Major —Saptaṛṣis became associated with Kṛttikās^[5]—Pleiades, making them their respective wives. It is uncanny to witness the association between Ursa Major and Pleiades despite being a continent apart.

2. Four major memories identified across the world

We identified very few narratives that found the path through Vedic land into the trans-Himalayan region, like Kirghiz-Turko-Tatar-Mongol-North America. Asian and North American group has four similar features. I identify them as a result of two waves of migrations.

1. Bear
2. Seven Brothers
3. One sister or girl or a stolen girl from the Pleiades
4. One constellation

The “bear” migration wave should have a pocket of memory with its “cub” to complete the Jigsaw puzzle.

2.1 Analysis of Ṛkṣa (Bear) in Ṛgveda

In Ṛgveda, we often come across the word Ṛkṣa being used in two senses. One is in the sense of Seven stars in the Big Dipper-northern constellation, and the other is the father of Śrutarvān. Śrutarvān is also known as patronymic Ārkṣa in Ṛgveda itself. Below are the mantras from Ṛgveda, which are evidence of the word Ṛkṣa used in the two senses mentioned above. The physical presence of Śrutarvān is entwined with the astronomical event of the emergence of rays and son of Ṛkṣa appearing in full splendour in Ṛgveda (read the Mantra 8.74.4). 

अ॒मी य ऋक्षा॒ निहि॑तास उ॒च्चा नक्तं॒ ददृ॑श्रे॒ कुह॑ चि॒द्दिवे॑युः ।

अद॑ब्धानि॒ वरु॑णस्य व्र॒तानि॑ वि॒चाक॑शच्च॒न्द्रमा॒ नक्त॑मेति ॥1.24.10 RV.

English translation:

“These constellations plural on high, which are visible by night, and go elsewhere by day, are the undisturbed holy acts of Varuṇa (and by his command) the moon moves resplendent by night.”

Commentary by Sāyaṇa: Ṛgveda-bhāṣya

Ṛkṣāḥ, constellations may be seven Ṛṣis, Ursa Major or constellations, in genitive ral. Constellations and the moon shine because of Varuṇa's piety (varuṇasya vratāni) since they shine by his command. A reference to asterisms: varuṇasya karmāṇi nakṣatra-darśanādirūpāṇi

मी॒ळ्हुष्म॑तीव पृथि॒वी परा॑हता॒ मद॑न्त्येत्य॒स्मदा ।

ऋक्षो॒ न वो॑ मरुत॒: शिमी॑वाँ॒ अमो॑ दु॒ध्रो गौरि॑व भीम॒युः ॥5.56.3

 

Pic 3. A WUYUE STAR MAP

Diameter of the original: 190 em. Photograph from Zhongguo Shehui Kexueyuan Kaogu Yanjiusuo, Zhongguo gudai tianwen wenwu tuji, 72.

“As the (people of the) earth having a powerful lord have recourse to him when oppressed (by others), so comes (the host of the Maruts) exulting to us; your company, Maruts, active as fire, is as difficult to be resisted as a formidable ox.”

(Ox is used for gaur (gauriva) गौरि॑व, Ṛkṣa is the host of Maruts.)

आग॑न्म वृत्र॒हन्त॑मं॒ ज्येष्ठ॑म॒ग्निमान॑वम् ।

यस्य॑ श्रु॒तर्वा॑ बृ॒हन्ना॒र्क्षो अनी॑क॒ एध॑ते ॥8.74.4

“We have come to that most excellent Agni, mightiest destroyer of the wicked, the benefactor of men, in whose army (O rays) Śrutarvān, the mighty son of Ṛkṣa, waxes great.”

अ॒हं हु॑वा॒न आ॒र्क्षे श्रु॒तर्व॑णि मद॒च्युति॑ ।

शर्धां॑सीव स्तुका॒विनां॑ मृ॒क्षा शी॒र्षा च॑तु॒र्णाम् ॥8.74.13

“Summoned before Śrutarvān, the son of Ṛkṣa, the humbler of the pride of his enemies, (I stroke) with my hand the heads of the four horses (which he has given me), as (men stroke) the long wool of rams.”

सु॒रथाँ॑ आतिथि॒ग्वे स्व॑भी॒शूँरा॒र्क्षे ।

आ॒श्व॒मे॒धे सु॒पेश॑सः ॥8.68.16

“(I receive) two steeds with excellent chariots from the son of Atithigva, two with excellent reins from the son of Ṛkṣa, two with excellent ornaments from the son of Aśvamedha.”

Ṛkṣa is the former name of Saptaṛṣi (Ursa Major) of the sky and is mentioned in Śatapatha Brahmaṇa^[6]. Julius Eggeling’s translation of Śatapatha Brahmaṇa also notes the same^[7]. This Indian Ṛgvedic constellation, known as the Bear constellation, is found in Bayer’s constellation Western Catalog (see Pic 1). It is commonly found in Indian texts that the constellations were given the names of earthly creatures and things, like, for example, Śiśumāra^[8], a Gangetic Dolphin/Porpoise or Alligator, is the name given to the northernmost Draco constellation, of which the star Thuban has been identified with Dhruva, which means a pole point. The name so given is due to its declination being almost 90º, when it served as a pole star during 3900–1800 BCE. Thuban appears to be a distortion of the Sanskrit word Dhruva (from Prakrit dhuba~thuba) lying on the tail of Draco^[9]. The etymological approach of the word Dhruva makes itself evidence. Likewise, we see many other creatures imagined in the sky. The primary use of animals and the hunting scene gives a fair idea of hunter-gatherer culture and the Paleolithic times and is worth recalling the idea again from the introduction section comprehended by Charles Kemp.

2.2 Bear and its cub in the vicinity of Vedic land

So, it is imperative to record here that the mention of Ṛkṣa in Ṛgveda had been in terms of Bear in the northern sky. In Indonesia, it is called Elu Meen, which is Tamil in origin, or Ursa/Rusa, which means deer in their language. Evidently, the word Ursa, meant for deer, has undergone diachronism, i.e., a change in the meaning of a word due to lapse of time and migration. Chinese civilization of the past remembers it as Běidǒu, but the classification of the seven stars in a group is strikingly similar to the depiction made by all civilizations that have made significant contributions to the field of scientific astronomy.. See the pic. 3 of THE STAR MAP FROM LONGFU TEMPLE, 1453^[10] showing the seven stars of Big Dipper. Euphratean astronomy^[11] knew a Kakkabu Dabi, a “Star (or Constellation) of the Bear”. Babylonian Kakkabu Dabi is depicted as a bear/boar^[12]. Arabian dubbeh^ is the ‘she-bear’. Al-dub-al-akbar (“the Great-bear”). However, the Arabian nomenclature is borrowed from the Classical Astronomy catalog which is a later phenomenon.

Let's see how some ancient Near East or Western texts remember it apart from Greek catalogs. It was referred to in the Old Testament (Job 9:9^[13]; 38:32^[14]) and mentioned by Homer in the Iliad (xviii, 487^[15]). The etymology of the word Ursa defines "pertaining to a bear" from the Latin ursinus "of or resembling a bear," from ursus "a bear," cognate with Greek arktos, from PIE *rtko- (see arctic). In Job’s gospel, the Bear is supposed to tie the zodiac in their season or guide the Great Bear and its Cubs. There is an interesting parallel found by Roslyn Frank, who collected folktales from the Pyrenean region (mountain chain of southwestern Europe), which summarizes Bear’s son’s tale to acquaint us with the name Hartzkume (Hartz = ‘bear’ and kume = ‘infant, child’) and Harzko (Hartz = ‘bear’, plus the diminutive affix -ko) given to little bear, pointing to Little Dipper.

Two words evidently appear before us, from the above descriptions, which are cognates to the Sanskrit word Ṛkṣa and PIE *rtko, and they are Greek Arktos (cf. Arctic) and European Harzko. In my opinion, Hartzkume is a clear cognate of the patronymic name of son of Ṛkṣa, i.e., Ārkṣa.

2.3 Fixing the date of one of the Mantras from Ṛgveda

Ṛgveda 10.85.13^[16] narrates that the marriage of Sūryā has to be performed in the asterism Phālgunī instead of the asterism Maghā. Note that these are lunar mansions/asterisms but these asterisms were also used as the backdrop for the precession of equinoxes of the Sun (ref Vedāṅga Jyotiṣa). Alexander Gurshtein^[17] notes that Alexander Marshack in the USA in 1972 and independently Boris Frolov in the USSR in 1974 collected many iconic proofs that a lunar month as a calendric unit appeared in the Upper Paleolithic.

The phrase evidences the season of marriage, i.e., spring and Phālgunī asterism rising with the sun due East at Vernal equinox born or coming out of Yama (यम॒वासृ॑जत्=Autumnal to vernal asterism belong to yama group of asterisms), pointing to either 8,000 BCE or 34,000 BCE similar to as in Maitrāyaṇī Āraṇyaka Upaniśad^[18]. The empirical evidence that helps in finding the time interval comes from Maitrāyaṇī Āraṇyaka Upaniśad, where, again, the vernal equinox is happening in Maghā, but along with that, we get another evidence of eustatic readings, i.e., ‘receding of the ocean' stated by King Bṛhadratha, which dates only to 34,500 BCE. Maitrāyaṇī Āraṇyaka Upaniśad is a part of Maitrāyaṇī Brahmaṇa, a part of Krishna Yajurveda, significant parts of which have been lost. Ṛgveda thus precedes the recent vernal equinox in Maghā constellation, i.e., 8000 BCE into the previous cycle of 34,000 BCE. This defines the lower limit of Ṛgveda.

We noted that we have a memory in Śatapatha that Saptaṛṣis were formerly known as Ṛkṣa. It should be noted here that the name Saptaṛṣis evolves in the Ṛgveda itself. We also know that Śatapatha is Śukla (white) Yajurvedic text and Yājnavalkhya is contemporary to Mahābhārata times (5561 BCE) and has given discourses of Śatapatha and Bṛhadāraṇya Upaniśad. Therefore, the rising of Kṛttikā in Śatapatha and TaittirIya brAhmaNa are the older memories from the previous precession cycle of Kṛttikā rising in the east, mentioned in Yājnavalkhya’s Śatapatha, is embedded in the texts. A Saṃvatsara cannot happen in two different asterisms in one’s own lifetime. Thus, the mention of Kṛttikā and Aditi becomes contradictory as Yājnavalkhya himself notes Saṃvatsara, i.e., the year beginning in Aditi in Bṛhadāraṇya Upaniśad (read here) (Vernal equinox in 16° – 29°20′ Cancer, 5000-6000 BCE). Now the memory of Ṛkṣa, continued in Europe but got disconnected with Ṛgvedic civilization in the iconography form as well. The latest iconography of Saptaṛṣis is that of Pauraṇic lore, where the boat they are sitting on is tugged by a fish (Matsyāvatara of Viṣṇu), which supports Elu Meen of Tamil memory. Note that Ṛgveda culture doesn’t entertain Fish at all. Overall, the depiction remembers a Boat, a unicorn fish, a snake, and other exotic creatures like Śiśumāra.

Pic. 4 Matsya as a golden horned fish pulling the boat with Manu and the seven sages. Matsya's horn is tied to boat with the serpent, who is also depicted behind Matsya as a symbolic support. c. 1890 Jaipur.

2.4 Archeological evidence of Bear ceremonialism and ethnographic genetic trail memories separating from the origins

Archaeological evidence of Bear ceremonialism paralleling contemporary earth’s circumpolar region’s societies, the region where the six months are days and later six months experience only night, includes unusual treatment of Bear remains, copying of bear scratches by humans, bear hunting, and rock art. Antonello’s research says that some Siberian populations identify Ursa Minor as a cub.

“According to the legends of some native American tribes, the quadrangle of Ursa Major^[19] represents a bear, while the other three bright stars are hunters in its pursuit. The celestial hunting takes place throughout the year, from when the bear comes out of hibernation in the spring until the killing in autumn 21. In most cases, these myths deal with a cosmic hunt, and Vasilevich (1963) and Anisimov (1963) discussed those of Siberian populations as an example. Some tales also include Ursa Minor as a cub of the adult animal represented by Ursa Major.”

Roslyn Frank writes that the placement of a bear at the center of heaven suggests, as others have noted, the possibility that its origins go far back in time to a hunter-gatherer cosmology rather than an agro-pastoral one (Gingerich 1984, p. 220; Schaefer 2002, pp. 334–335, 2006, pp. 96–98). I agree with Roslyn Frank's view and the information she shares from Gingerich’s research. It thus becomes imperative to analyze such times to understand the patterns and trends of human migrations.

Fig 2, Antonello’s research showing the earliest depiction of Little Bear.

Genetically speaking, we find evidence of human movement and dispersal in different directions, with a split of Haplogroup P further into Q and R. Q-M242 is believed to have arisen around the Altai Mountains area (or South-Central Siberia),^[20] approximately 17,000 to 31,700 years ago (about 24,500 years BP). Their ancestor Haplogroup P is suggested by Karafet et al. (2015,) an origin and dispersal from either South Asia or Southeast Asia as part of the early human dispersal, based on the distribution of subclades now classified as P2, and more ancient clades such as K1, K2, H, L which are concentrated in India.

Katkar brings evidence that between 70,000 BP and 50,000 BP, modern humans did not move toward the west because of the Ice Age. Continuous extreme cold and aridity made the Fertile Crescent passage inhospitable. Humans stayed for 30 thousand years, since their arrival 80,000 years ago, in the Indus region and South Asia before moving west (Oppenheimer, 2005)^[21]. Post 50,000 BP, the disbursement started as the climate became suitable. By this analysis, I can safely say that the memories of Ṛkṣa got disconnected during these times, from 40,000 BCE onwards, following which came the LGM (24000 BCE).

Fig 3. Proposed migration routes of Haplogroup P among others

 Due to high glaciation the people of the geographies of the Trans Himalayan region got disconnected for a great duration of time. (see fig 3) The route to migration post 40000 BP to 21000 BP shows the break in migration for quite a long while. The Disconnection of the memory can be felt from the studies of various haplogroups resulting into splits and isolation of the P haplogroup (Possible time of origin~~44,000 BCE) into Eurasia and Siberia as Q and R. They continued with the earlier memory of Ṛkṣa (bear iconography) till Siberia. In contrast, the Indians moved from Ṛkṣa to Saptaṛṣis as early as during Ṛgvedic times (lower limit 34000 BCE).

2.5 The timing of Ṛkṣa - Ārkṣa (Big bear- Little bear) and Seven sages - Seven brothers

We can safely conclude that Ṛkṣa and Ārkṣa duo for Big Bear and Little Bear were ideated at the same time when Polaris was made the pole star. They both come together into a single frame for the purpose during these times. Saptaṛṣi’s presence in the 10th, i.e., the newest mandala, gives us an idea of Ṛkṣa and Ārkṣa, the duo hailed from during the times of the previous cycle’s Polaris being a pole star. Here, the Saptaṛṣis themselves belong to the period before the event of Arjunī (Phālgunī), of 34,500 BCE, and can only be conjectured to be from 34,500 BCE, which happened before the Last Glacial Maximum during early glaciation time of Himalayas. Therefore, the Eurasian Homosapien split from South Asian (Indian) must have happened before this time, and the last memory of Ṛkṣa remained intact in the sacrificial culture of Eurasia. It is worth noting here that Ṛgveda alludes to Ṛṣi  culture and the memory of Ṛkṣa and Ārkṣa are the memories from deeper antiquity

The Upper Paleolithic, which saw the emergence of more sophisticated tools, lasted from about 50,000 to 40,000 years ago until about 10,000 years ago. Europe shows petroglyphs and cave art depicting bulls and bears from mid-Upper Paleolithic times.

“Red ochre traces on several fossil bear remains [mainly of the head and paw regions] in Belgian caves [were] applied purposely by prehistoric people. […] This parallels the ethnographic evidence, since in many circumpolar societies, the bear head/skull and paws were colored with red or black marks during bear rituals, and it was the skull, in particular, that was disposed of at a sacred location.” (Germonpré and Hämäläinen 2007: 20).

Evidence of mid-Upper Palaeolithic bear-ceremonialism paralleling the contemporary circumpolar societies includes: unusual treatment of bear remains, copying of bear scratches by humans, bear hunting, rock art.”

The bear-like sacrificial ceremonialism is a common thing in Ṛgveda, a very famous is the sacrificial narratives of Śunaśepa, etc. Since the Bear and its culture became obsolete, so did the ceremonialism.

Furthermore, Ursa Major, i.e., the Great Bear (she-Bear), is a shared cultural heritage of various populations of Eurasia and North America. Antonello’s research is worth mentioning here, However, although he fails to identify the timing of the event and speculates that it could be even older.

“On the basis of the Greek myth of the nymph Callisto, we tried to illustrate how the identification of this group with a bear could have been related to the shape of the constellation some tens of thousands of years ago (e.g., Antonello 2008, 2009).”

“It may be possible that even the core of the myth of Callisto^[22] regarding Ursa Major, the Great she-Bear, is very ancient, and that in the Upper Palaeolithic, there was a bear ceremonialism similar to that of northern indigenous populations described by the ethnographers.”

Elio Antonello elaborates in his paper^[23] and concludes that about 56,000 years ago, the shapes of the constellations Ursa Minor and Ursa Major were quite different from the present one, and this constellation in the myth of Callisto can be as old as he has shown.

I agree that, the depiction goes older to 52,000 years BP, i.e., before two cycles of axial precession, where a star from the cluster of Ursa Minor became a pole star. It is evident from the lore of Dhruva that such events have often been recorded in Indian texts encompassing additional crucial human feats or environmental events interwoven with the astronomical event. Identifying the pole star in the sky was a way to record an event in the oral tradition in India. Observing the polestar with Big Bear and Little Bear was the first feat during the time of H/K haplogroup formation. The second feat of anthropomorphizing pole stars as humans was during the latter wave of migration, i.e., during the formation of Q Haplogroup splitting from P, i.e., 17,000 to 31,700 years ago towards Kirghiz and Mongol, Altai region.

We may have lost the ‘lore’ of Ṛkṣa and Ārkṣa due to great antiquity in Indian oral tradition. Yet, we still find the names, like Harzko or Arctos or Callisto’s son Arcas, as cognates of Ṛkṣa and Ārkṣa, which are still prevalent in different cultures that may have still been the legendary history in India before high glaciation of Himalayas. There was not only an Ṛkṣa-bear cult, but I speculate that there were Ṛkṣa people too in the lowlands of the Himalayas who spread during more healthful environmental times. A few groups eventually separated from India during or before LGM times, creating another haplogroup due to coalescence during the early glaciation of the Himalayas when the snow-clad mountains hindered human movement in the Trans Himalayan region. Thus, this separated the lands with the earlier memories retained in the Trans Himalayan regions only to reunite in post-LGM, mesolithic, and neolithic times. Few of the Ṛkṣa groups aided the war of Ramayana times (12209 BCE), where we see the Ṛkṣa/bear/Jāmbvant of great knowledge in Rāma’s Army.

Ramayana knows the geography of the Arctic and shows the possible difference between the Ṛkṣa and Ṛṣi earlier separation. This fact is attested by a Ṛkṣa character, i.e., belonging to a Ṛkṣa community or tribe, Jambavant in the Ramayana. The ape Jambavant is Brahman’s son (IV: 41: 2, VI: 6: 20 Rāmāyaṇa) and it says “They live in a spot in the farthest north he dwells, the highest, ubiquitous god”, I won't delve into the intricacies of linguistics in this explanation, but it is crucial to grasp the basic idea that there is a potential connection between the name Ṛkṣa and the modern term Russia. Furthermore, Ṛkṣa might have contributed to the nomenclature of Rus (Ruskie) for what we now recognize as Russia. Similarly, in India, it might have influenced the term Ṛṣi.

3. Conclusion
•    The Big Dipper/Bear constellation, i.e., the Indian Saptaṛṣis, was formerly known as Ṛkṣa.
•    The parallels of Ṛkṣa and his son named Ārkṣa, mentioned in the oldest extant of the world, i.e., Ṛgveda—1.24.10, with European Bear constellation Harzko or Arctos or mythical Arcas, son of she-bear Callisto is identified. 
•    The above similarities are due to their single origin, which paved the way through few pockets of Eurasia and further into the North Americas. Thus, the Proto Bear Ceremonialism in Upper Paleolithic Europe and Archeo-Astro-Ethnographic memories via Bear cult are speculated with the timing of events in Ṛgveda, as presented in this paper. 
•    The timing of separation of the word Ṛkṣa-Bear from India into Eurasia, (after which the use of the name became obsolete in India), i.e., Trans Himalaya, is also identified and is found between 52,000 BP till mid-upper Paleolithic, i.e., Last Glacial Maximum times. It is difficult to identify the exact time of separation of the word Ṛkṣa due to deeper antiquities. But it cannot be later than 50,000 BCE. 

End Notes
1.    Rg veda-10.61.7
2.    Astronomy of Tribals of Central India, Current Science
3.    Charles Kemp, (2022), Perceptual Grouping Explains Similarities in Constellations Across Cultures, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09567976211044157.
4.    (Elwin 1938: 156; 1939: 335; Roy & Roy 1937: 431)
5.    Charles F. and Erminie W. Voegelin, North American Indian Tribes,” Pubs.Amer. Ethn, son., No. 20 (1941)
6.    Kṛttikās are the group of six or seven divine mothers (stars) in Indic tradition, which serves as the first deva asterism in the group of 28 constellation systems.
7.    (4) of Kanda II, adhyaya 1, brahmana 2, 
8.    Saptarshi, or the seven Ṛṣis, is the designation of the p. 283 constellation of Ursa Major, or the Wain. In the Rig-vela,. rikṣāḥ (bears) occurs once (I, 24, 10), either in the same restricted sense or in that of stars generally.
9.    Rig Veda 1.116.18, यदया॑तं॒ दिवो॑दासाय व॒र्तिर्भ॒रद्वा॑जायाश्विना॒ हय॑न्ता । रे॒वदु॑वाह सच॒नो रथो॑ वां वृष॒भश्च॑ शिंशु॒मार॑श्च यु॒क्ता ॥
10.    https://www.wisdomlib.org/hinduism/book/the-bhagavata-purana/d/doc1127140.html chapter 23, 5th Skandha, Bhagvat purana
11.    F. RICHARD STEPHENSON, Chinese and Korean Star Maps and Catalogs (https://press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/HOC_V2_B2/HOC_VOLUME2_Book2_chapter13.pdf)
12.    Proceedings Of The Society Of Biblical Archaeology Vol 09 1887
13.    Robert Brown, 1883, Eridanus: river and constellation
14.    9. He made the Great Bear, Orion, the Pleiades and the hidden constellations of the south.
15.    31. "Can you tie up the cords of the Pleiades or loosen the belt of Orion?
16.    32. Can you lead out the constellations of the zodiac in their season or guide the Great Bear and its cubs?
[485] and therein all the constellations wherewith heaven is crowned—the Pleiades, and the Hyades and the mighty Orion, and the Bear, that men call also the Wain, that circleth ever in her place, and watcheth Orion, and alone hath no part in the baths of Ocean.
17.     Ṛgveda 10.85.13 सू॒र्याया॑ वह॒तुः प्रागा॑त्सवि॒ता यम॒वासृ॑जत् । अ॒घासु॑ हन्यन्ते॒ गावोऽर्जु॑न्यो॒: पर्यु॑ह्यते ॥ the oxen are whipped along in the Maghā (constellations); she is borne (to her husband’s house) in the Arjunī.
18.    Alexander Gurshtein, Prehistory of zodiac dating: Three strata of Upper paleolithic constellations 
19.    See the article by Rupa Bhaty,  “Bṛhadratha’s Observation of Decline of Ocean level— Epoch 34,500 BCE” in MyInd journal, Dec 28, 2022
20.    In classical and European tradition, instead, the constellation Ursa Major is larger and includes about  visible stars
21.    Zegura, S. L.; Karafet, TM; Zhivotovsky, LA; Hammer, MF (2004). "High-Resolution SNPs and Microsatellite Haplotypes Point to a Single, Recent Entry of Native American Y Chromosomes into the Americas"
22.    Narendra Katkar, After Last Glacial Maximum: The Third Migration
23.    Seduced by the God Zeus, transformed into a bear, bore a son named Arkas (Arcas),
24.    Elio Antonello, 2013, The Myths of the Bear

Sources
1.    Russell, R. V. and Rai Bahadur, H., The tribes and casts of the Central Provinces of India, Macmillan and Company, London, 1916
2.    Charles Kemp, (2022), Perceptual Grouping Explains Similarities in Constellations Across Cultures, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09567976211044157
3.    F. RICHARD STEPHENSON, Chinese and Korean Star Maps and Catalogs ( https://press.uchicago.edu/books/HOC/HOC_V2_B2/HOC_VOLUME2_Book2_chapter13.pdf) 
4.    Proceedings Of The Society Of Biblical Archaeology Vol 09 1887 
5.    Robert Brown, 1883, Eridanus: river and constellation
6.    Y. Berezkin, The cosmic hunt
7.    Zegura, S. L.; Karafet, TM; Zhivotovsky, LA; Hammer, MF (2004). "High-Resolution SNPs and Microsatellite Haplotypes Point to a Single, Recent Entry of Native American Y Chromosomes into the Americas"
8.    Zegura, S. L.; Karafet, TM; Zhivotovsky, LA; Hammer, MF (2004). "High-Resolution SNPs and Microsatellite Haplotypes Point to a Single, Recent Entry of Native American Y Chromosomes into the Americas"
9.    Elio Antonello, 2013, The myths of the Bear 
10.    William B. Gibbon, Asiatic Parallels in North American Star Lore: Ursa Major, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 77, No. 305 (Jul. - Sep., 1964), pp. 236-250
11.    The Celestial Bear, Stansbury Hagar, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 13, No. 49 (Apr. - Jun., 1900), pp. 92-103
12.    Bear Mother, Marius Barbeau, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 59, No. 231 (Jan. - Mar., 1946), pp. 1-12 (20 pages)
13.    The Story of the Bear and His Indian Wife. A Legend of the Haidas of Queen Charlotte's Island, B. C., James Deans, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 2, No. 7 (Oct. - Dec., 1889), pp. 255-260 (6 pages)
14.    The Bear's Son Tale in Northern Mexico, Robert A. Barakat, The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 78, No. 310 (Oct. - Dec., 1965), pp. 330-336 (7 pages)
15.    Bear in Human Imagination and in Ritual, Lydia T. Black, Ursus, Vol. 10, A Selection of Papers from the Tenth International Conference on Bear Research and Management, Fairbanks, Alaska, July 1995, and Mora, Sweden, September 1995 (1998), pp. 343-347 (5 pages)
16.    Prehistory of zodiac dating: Three strata of Upper paleolithic constellations, Alexander Gurshtein, 1995, Vistas in Astronomy, Vol. 39, pp. 341-362 
17.    A.Marshack “The Roots of Civilization”, New York, 1972 
18.    B.A.Frolov “Numbers in Paleolithic graphics”,Novosibirsk, 1974 (in Russian).
Roslyn Frank, The origins of ‘Western’ constellations

 

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