ORION, a mythological personage of the Greeks, was represented as a gigantic hunter, and reputed the hand- somest man in the world. His parentage is differently stated. According to the commonly received myth he was the son of Hyrieus, of Hyria, in Bceolia, and was called in his native country Kandaon. Another ac- count makes him a son of Poseidon and Euryale, while some say that he was A utochthonos, or " earth- born." So immense was his stature that when he waded through the deepest seas he was still a head and shoul- ders above the water, and when lie walked on dry land his stature reached the clouds. Orion was a general favorite, and soon rendered himself celebrated. Diana took him among her attendants, and even became deeply enamoured of him. His gigantic stature, how- ever, displeased Qinopion, king of Chios, whose daugh- ter Hero or Merope he demanded in marriage. The king, not daring to deny him openly, promised to make him his son-in-law as soon as he delivered his island from wild beasts. This task, which Q^nopion deemed im- practicable, was soon performed by Orion, who eagerly demanded his reward. CEnopion, on pretence of com- plying, intoxicated his illustrious guest, and put out his eyes on the sea-shore, where he had laid himself down to sleep. Orion, finding himself blind when he awoke, was conducted by the sound to a neighboring forge, where he placed one of the workmen on his back, and, by his directions, went to a place where the rising sun was seen to the greatest advantage. Here he turned his face towards the luminary, and, as is reported, he immediately recovered his eyesight, and hastened to punish the perfidious cruelty of CEnopion. Aurora, whom Venus had inspired with love, carried him away into the island of Delos, to enjoy his company with greater security; but Diana, who was jealous of this, destroyed Orion with her arrows. Some say that Orion had provoked Diana's resentment by offering violence to Opis, one of her female attendants, or, according to others, because he had attempted the virtue of the goddess herself. According to Ovid, Orion died of the bite of a scorpion, which the earth produced, to punish his vanity in boasting that there was not on earth any animal which he could not coiupier. It is said that Orion was an excellent workman in iron, and that he fabricated a subterraneous palace for Vulcan. After death Orion was placed in heaven, where one of the constellations still bears his name. The constellation of Orion, situated near the feet of the bull, was composed of seventeen stars, in the form of a man holding a sword, which has given occasion to the |)oets often to speak of Orion's sword. As the constellation of Orion, which rises about March 9, and sets about June 21, is gener- I
ally supposed to be accompanied, at its rising, with great rains and storms, it has acquired the epithet of aquosus. given it by Virgil. Orion was buried in the island of Delos, and the monument which the people of Tanagra, in Hoeotia, showed, as containing the remains of this celebrated hero, was nothing but a cenotaph. The daughters of Orion distinguished themselves as much as their father, and when the oracle had declared that Pocotia shoidd not be delivered from a dreadful pestilence before two of Jupiter's children were immo- lated on the altars, they joyfully accepted the offer, and voluntarily sacrificed themselves for the good of their country. Their naines were Menippe and Metioche. See Vollmer, Mylhol. Wvrterh. s. v. ; Smith, Did. of Or. (iiid Rom. Biorj. and Myihol. s. v. (J. H. W.)
Oi'issa, an ancient Indian kingdom, now a province of India, is situated near the head of the Bay of Bengal, on its north-western shore, a short distance south-west from Calcutta, and is bounded on the north by Bengal, east by the Bay of Bengal, south by the country of the Telugus, and west by Nagopore. It is irregularly shaped, about 300 miles long, and 240 wide, and had in 1872 a population of 4,317,999. It is supposed that the province was anciently much larger than it is now, and that its sovereigns formerly sustained a rank much above that of most Hindil rajahs, and that it was num- bered among the most powerfid of the ancient Indian sovereignties.
Before the Gth century B.C., Orissa, Odi-o, or Ulkala, names whose very meaning is not yet fixed, must have been a land of swamps, lakes, and jungles, amid which few people cared to live. Its earliest dwellers appear to have been hill-tribes and fishermen of the aboriginal non-Arj'an stock, whose types are Avell preserved in the Savars and Khonds of the present day. At what tiine Aryan immigrants from Northern India settled in the country it is not easy to say, but the rock inscriptions of a later Buddhist period date back to the middle of the 3d century' B.C. The hills and wilds of Orissa abound in rock-hewn caves, shrines, and statues of Buddha, and the lonely dwelling-places of Buddhist moidvs have since been tenanted in their turn by wor- shippers and ascetics of the various Brahmanic schools that rose upon the ruins of the faith proclaimed by the semi-mythical Hindu reformer Sakj'a Mfaii, and were established by the Hindu Constantine Asoka. In Oris- sa the spread of Buddhism appears to synchronize cu- riously with the progress southward of the Yavanas, whose name at once suggests their identity with the Javan of Hebrew writ and the Ionian Greeks of history. There is no doubt, we thiid<, with Dr. Hunter, who onlj"^ follows up the chics furnished by former scholars, that the Yavanas who invaded Orissa in the 3d century B.C. were chiefiy descendants of the men who under Alex- ander and his successors ruled Afghanistan and the Puiijaub, whence thej^ roved or were driven onwards into Behar, and down the (ianges to Orissa. One of Asoka's edicts carved on the rocks of the last-named country speaks of "Antyoko. the Yona king," or, in other words, of Antiochns, the Yavan, or Ionian. It is well known that a Yavan dynasty ruled Orissa for 146 years, from the early part of the 4th century A.D., and that with its final overthrow in A.D. 473 fell the su- premacy of that Budtihist faith which for more than seven centuries had supiilanted the older Brahmanic systems. It is worth noting that a like revolution from Buddhism to 15raliniiiiism marks the downfall of yet later Yavan dynasties in Central and Southern India. In the buildings of the Buddhists and their religious heirs the Jains, traces of (ireek art are unmistakably visible wherever Buddhism and the Yavanas once held sway; strongest in the Punjaub, and gradually growing fainter on its way to the Orissa shore. From the remains of sculptures, inscriptions, etc., we may infer that the early civilization of Orissa was high. Tlie temple of the sun at Kaniirak — erected about tlie 12th century — exhibits carvings representing the planets, sculptured figures of