Note 16 — Chapter XVIII · Japanese Gods and Dragons

Here we have what appears to be a version of the Moses story. The Indian Karna, who is similarly set adrift, was a son of Surya, god of the sun. The Egyptian Horus was concealed after birth on a floating island, and he was originally a solar deity with a star form.16 Ra, the Egyptian sun-god, drifted across the heavens on reed floats before he was given a boat. Osiris was, after death, set adrift in a chest. When the Egyptians paid more attention to the constellations than they did in the early period of their history, they placed in the constellation of Argo the god Osiris in a chest or boat. In the Greek period Canopus, the chief star of the constellation of Argo, is the child Horus in his boat. Horus was a reincarnation of Osiris. The Babylonian Ea originally came to Eridu in a boat, which became transformed into a fish-man. As the sign for a god was a star, Ea was apparently supposed to have come from one. Lockyer refers to Egyptian and Babylonian temples, which were “oriented to Canopus”.17 Sun-gods were the offspring of the mother-star, or their own souls were stars by night. “Hiruko,” says Aston, “is in reality simply a masculine form of Hirume, the sun female.”18 The sun and moon had not, however, come into existence when he was set adrift, and it may be that as the “leech-child” he was a star. He became identified in time with Ebisu (or Yebisu), god of fishermen, and one of the gods of luck.