वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

126 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. their deities to release them from darkness. Thus in II, 27, 14, the poet says "Aditi, Mitra and also Varuṇa, forgive if we have committed any sin against you! May I obtain the wide fearless- light, O Indra! May not the long darkness come over us." The ex- pression in the original for 'long darkness' is dīrghāḥ tamisrāḥ, and means rather an 'uninterrupted succession of dark nights (tamisrāḥ)' than simply 'long darkness.' But even adopting Max Müller's rendering given above,* the anxiety here manifested for the disappearance of the long darkness is unmeaning, if the darkness never lasted for more than twenty-four hours. In I, 46, 6, the Ashvins are asked "to vouchsafe such strength to the worshipper as may carry him through darkness"; and in VII, 67, 2 the poet exclaims:—"The fire has commenced to burn, the ends of darkness have been seen, and the banner of the Dawn has appeared in the east!"† The expression 'ends of darkness' (tamasaḥ antāḥ) is very peculiar, and it would be a violation of idiom to take this and other expressions indicating 'long darkness' to mean nothing more than long winter nights, as we have them in the temperate or the tropical zone. As stated previously the longest winter night in these zones must be, at best, a little short of twenty-four hours, and even then these long nights prevail only for a fortnight or so. It is, therefore, very un- likely that Vedic bards perpetuated the memory of these long nights by making it a grievance of such importance as to require the aid of their deities to relieve them from

• Hibbert Lectures, p. 231. The verse is:— अदिते मित्र वरुणोत मृळ यह्वो वयं चकृमा कच्चिदागः । उर्वश्यामभयं ज्योतिरिंद्र मा नो दीर्घा अभि नशन्तमिस्त्राः ॥ † Ṛig. I, 46, 6,—या नः पीपरदश्विना ज्योतिष्मती तमस्तिरः । तामस्मे रासाथामिषम् ॥ Ṛig. VII, 67, 2,—अशोच्यग्निः समिधानो अस्मे उपो अद- श्रन्तमसश्चिदन्ताः ।

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. 127 it. There are other passages where the . same longing for the. end of darkness or for the appearance of light is expressed, and these cannot be accounted for on the theory that to the old Vedic bards night was as death, since they had no means, which a civilised person in the twentieth century possesses, of dispel- ling the darkness of night by artificial illumination. Even the modern savages are not reported to be in the habit of exhibiting. such impatience for the morning light as we find in the utter- ances of the Vedic bards ; and yet the latter were so much ad- vanced in civilisation as to know the use of metals and carriages. Again not only men, but Gods, are said to have lived in long darkness. Thus, in X, 124, 1, Agni is told that he has stayed “too long in the long darkness,” the phrase used being jyog eva dîrgham tama âshayishṭâḥ. This double phrase jyog (long) and dîrgham is still more inappropriate, if the duration of darkness never exceeded that of the longest winter-night. In II, 2, 2, the same deity, Agni, is said to shinè during “continuous nights,” which, according to Max Muller, is the meaning of the word kshapạḥ in the original.* The translation is no doubt correct, but Prof. Max Muller does not explain to us what he means by the phrase “continuous nights.” Does it signify a succession of nights uninterrupted by sunlight? or, is it only an elegant render- ing, meaning nothing more than a number of nights ? The learn- ed translator seems to have narrowly missed the true import of the phrase employed by him. But we need not depend on stray passages like the above to prove that the long night was known in early days. In the tenth Maṇḍala of the Ṛig-Veda we have a hymn (127) addressed to the Goddess of night, and in the 6th verse of this hymn Night is invoked to “ become

• See S. B, E. Series, Vol. XLVI, p. 195.

128 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. easily fordable " to the worshipper (nah sutarâ bhava). In the Parishishṭa, which follows this hymn in the Ṛig-Veda, and which is known as Rātri-sûkta or Durgā-stava, the worshipper asks the Night to be favourable to him, exclaiming “May we reach the other side in safety ! May we reach the other side in safety !"* In the Atharva-Veda, XIX, 47, which is a reproduction, with some variations, of the above Parishishṭa, the second verse runs thus : “Each moving thing finds rest in her (Night), whose yonder boundary is not seen, nor that which keeps her separate. O spacious, darksome Night ! May we,uninjured, reach the end of thee, reach, O thou blessed one, thine end !" And in the third verse of the 50th hymn of the same book the worshippers ask that they may pass uninjured in their body, “through each succeeding night, (rātrim rātrim)." Now a question is naturally raised why should every one be so anxious about safely reaching the other end of the night ? And why should the poet exclaim that “its yonder boundary is not seen, nor what keeps it separate ?” Was it because it was an ordinary winter night, or, was it because it was the long Arctic night ? Fortunately, the Taittirīya Saṁhitâ preserves for us the oldest traditional reply to these questions, and we need not, therefore, depend upon the speculations of modern commentators. In the Taittirīya Saṁhitâ I, 5, 5, 4,† we

• The 4th verse in the Râtri-Sûkta is:—प्रपद्येऽहं शिवां रात्रीं भद्रे पारमशीमहि भद्रे पारमशीमहि। The Atharva-Veda, XIX, 47, 2, — न यस्याः पारं ददृशे न योयुवद्विश्वमत्वां नि विशते यदेजति। अरिष्टांसस्त उर्वि तम- स्वति रात्रि पारमशीमहि भद्रे पारमशीमहि॥ Ibid, XIX, 50,3,— रात्रिं रात्रिम- रिष्यन्तस्तरेम तन्वा वयम् । † Taitt Sam. 1, 5, 5, 4,— चित्रावसो स्वस्त ते पारमशीव ॥ Taitt, Sam. 1,5,7,5,— चित्रावसो स्वस्ति ते पारमशीयेत्त्वाह । रात्रिर्वै चित्रावसुर्- व्युष्ट्यै वा एतस्यै पुरा ब्राह्मणा अभैषुः ॥ Sâyaṇa thus explains the passage हेमन्तर्तौ रात्रेर्दीर्घत्वेन प्रभातं न भविष्यत्येवेति कदाचिद् ब्राह्मणा भीता अतः पारमशीवेति प्रार्थनया प्रभातं लभते ।

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. 129 have a similar Mantra or prayer addressed to Night in these words:—"O Chitrâvasu! let me safely reach thy end." A little further, (I, 5, 7, 5,) the Saṁhitâ itself explains this Mantra, or prayer thus:—"Chitrâvasu is (means) the night; in old times (purâ), the Brâhmans (priests) were afraid that it (night) would not dawn." Here we have an express Vedic statement, that, in old times, the priests or the people, felt apprehensions regard- ing the time when the night would end. What does it signify? If the night was not unusually long, where was the necessity for entertaining any misgivings about the coming dawn? Sâyaṇa, in commenting on the above passage, has again put forward his usual explanation, that nights in the winter were long and they made the priest apprehensive in regard to the coming dawn. But here we can quote Sâyaṇa against himself, and show that he has dealt with this important passage in an off-hand manner. It is well known that the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ often explains the Mantras, and this portion of the Saṁhitâ is called Brâhmaṇa, the whole of the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ being made up in this way of Mantras and the Brâhmaṇa, or prayers and their explanations or commentary mixed up together. The statement regarding the apprehensions of the priests about the coming dawn, therefore, falls under the Brâhmaṇa portion of the Saṁhitâ. Now the contents of the Brâhmaṇas are usually classified by Indian divines under the ten following heads*:—(1) Hetu or reason; (2) Nirvachana, or etymological explanation; (3) Nindâ, or censure; (4) Prashamsâ, or praise; (5) Saṁshaya, or doubt; (6) Vidhi, or the rule; (7) Parakriyâ, or others' doings; (8) Purâ-kalpa, or ancient rite or tradition; (9) Vyavadhâraṇa-kalpanâ or determining the

• These are enumerated in the following verses:— हेतुर्निर्वचनं निंदा प्रशंसा संशयोविधिः । परक्रिया पुराकल्पो व्यवधारणकल्पना ॥ उपमानं दशैवैते विधयो ब्राह्मणस्य तु । एतद्वै सर्ववेदेषु नियतं विधिलक्षणम् ॥

130 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.

limitations; (10) Upamâna, an apt comparison or simile. Sâyaṇa in his introduction to the commentary on the Ṛig-Veda men- tions the first nine of these, and as an illustration of the eighth, Purâ-kalpa, quotes the explanatory passage from the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, I, 5, 7, 5, referred to above. According to Sâyaṇa the statement, "In former times the priests were afraid that it would not dawn," therefore, comes under Purâ-kalpa, or ancient traditional history found in the Brâhmaṇas. It is no Arthavâda, that is, speculation or explanation put forth by the Brâhmaṇa itself. This is evident from the word purâ which occurs in the Saṁhitâ text, and which shows that some piece of ancient traditional information is here recorded. Now if this view is correct, a question naturally arises why should ordinary long winter nights have caused such apprehensions in the minds of the priests only 'in former times,' and why should the long darkness cease to inspire the same fears in the minds of the present generation. The long winter nights in the tropical and the temperate zone are as long to-day as they were thousands of years ago, and yet none of us, not even the most ignorant, feels any misgiving about the dawn which puts an end to the darkness of these long nights. It may, perhaps, be urged that in ancient times the bards had not acquired the knowledge necessary to predict the certain appearance of the dawn after a lapse of some hours in such cases. But the lameness of this excuse becomes at once evident when we see that the Vedic calendar was, at this time, so much advanced that even the question of the equation of the solar and the lunar year was solved with sufficient accuracy. Sâyaṇa's explanation of winter nights causing misgivings about the coming dawn must, there- fore, be rejected as unsatisfactory. It was not the long winter- night that the Vedic bards were afraid of in former ages. It

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. 131 was something else, something very long, so long that, though you knew it would not last permanently, yet, by its very length, it tired your patience and made you long for, eagerly long for, the coming dawn. In short, it was the long night of the Arctic region, and the word purâ shows that it was a story of former ages, which the Vedic bards knew by tradition. I have shown elsewhere that the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ must be assigned to the Kṛittikâ period. We may, therefore, safely conclude that at about 2500 B. C., there was a tradition current amongst the Ve- dic people to the effect that in former times, or rather in the former age, the priests grew so impatient of the length of the night, the yonder boundary of which was not known, that they fervently prayed to their deities to guide them safely to the other end of that tiresome darkness. This description of the night is inappropriate unless we take it to refer to the long and continuous Arctic night. Let us now see if the Ṛig-Veda contains any direct reference to the long day, the long night, or to the Circum-polar calendar, besides the expressions about long darkness or the difficulty of reaching the other boundary of the endless night noticed above. We have seen before that the Ṛig-Vedic calendar is a calendar of 360 days, with an intercalary month, which can neither be Polar nor Circum-polar. But side by side with it the Ṛig-Veda preserves the descriptions of days and nights, which are not applicable to the cis-Arctic days, unless we put an artificial con- struction upon the passages containing these descriptions. Day and Night is spoken of as a couple in the Vedic literature, and is denoted by a compound word in the dual number. Thus we have Ushâsâ-naktâ (I, 122, 2), Dawn and Night; Naktoshâsâ (I, 142, 7), Night and Dawn; or simply Ushâsau (I, 188, 6), the two Dawns; all meaning a couple of Day and Night. The word Aho-râtre also

132 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. means Day and Night ; but it does not occur in the Ṛig-Veda, though Aitareya Brâhmaṇa ( II, 4 ) treats it as synonymous with Uṣhâsâ-naktâ. Sometimes this pair of Day and Night is spoken of as two sisters or twins ; but whatever the form in which they are addressed, the reference is usually unambiguous. Now one of the verses which describes this couple of Day and Night is III, 55, 11.* The deity of the verse is Aho-râtre, and it is admitted on all hands that it contains a description of Day and Night. It runs thus :— Nânâ chakrâte yamyâ vapûṁṣhi tayor anyad rochate kṛiṣhṇam anyat । Shyâvî cha yad aruṣhî cha svasârau mahad devânâm asuratvam ekam ॥ The first three quarters or feet of this verse contain the principal statements, while the fourth is the refrain of the song or the hymn. Literally translated it means:—"The twin pair (females) make many forms ; of the two one shines, the other (is) dark : two sisters (are) they, the dark (shyâvî), and the bright (aruṣhî). The great divinity of the Gods is one (unique)." The verse looks simple enough at the first sight, and simple it is, so far as the words are concerned. But it has been misunderstood in two important points. We shall take the first half of the verse first. It says " the twin pair make many forms ; of the two one shines and the other is dark." The twin pair are Day and Night, and one of them is bright and the other dark. So far, there- fore, there is no difficulty. But the phrase 'make many forms' does not seem to have been properly examined or interpreted. The words used in the original verse are nânâ chakrâte vapûṁṣhi,

• Ṛig. III, 55, 11,—नाना चक्राते यम्या वपूंषि तयोरन्यद्रोचते कृष्ण- मन्यत् । श्यावी च यादरुषी च स्वसारौ महद्देवानामसुरत्वमेकम् ॥

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. 133 and they literally mean ‘make many bodies or forms.’ We have thus a two-fold description of the couple ; it is called the shining and the dark, and also described as possessed of many forms. In I, 123, 7, the couple of Day and Night is said to be vishurûpe; while in other places the adjective virûpe is used in the same sense. It is evident, therefore, that the ‘bodies’ or ‘forms’ intended to be denoted by these words must be different from the two-fold character of the couple as shining and dark; and if so, the phrases vishurûpe, virûpe or nânâ vapûmṣhi used in connection with the couple of Day and Night must be taken to mean something different from ‘bright and dark’, if these expressions are not to be considered as superfluous or tautological. Sâyaṇa. interprets these phrases as referring to different colours (rûpa), like black, white, &c., and some of the Western scholars seem to have adopted this interpreta- tion. But I cannot see the propriety of assigning different colours to Day and Night. Are we to suppose that we may have sometimes green, violet, yellow or blue days and nights ? Again though the word rûpa lends itself to this construction, yet vapûmṣhi cannot ordinarily be so understood. The question does not, however, seem to have attracted the serious atten- tion of the commentators; so that even Griffith translates vishurûpe by ‘unlike in hue’ in I, 123, 7. The Naktoshâsâ are described as virûpe also in I, 113, 3, but there too Sâyaṇa gives the same explanation. It does not appear to have occurred to any one that the point requires any further thought. Happily, in the case of Ṛig. I, 113, 3, we have, however, the advantage of consulting a commentator older than Sâyaṇa. The verse occurs in the Uttarârchika of Sâma-Veda (19, 4, 2, 3), and Mâdhava in his Vivaraṇa, a commentary on the Sâma-Veda, explains virûpe thus:— “In the Dakshiṇâyana during the year there is the increase of

134 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. night, and in the Uttarâyaṇa of day.'"* Mâdhava's Vivaraṇa is a scarce book, and I take the above quotation from an extract from his commentary given in a footnote to the Calcutta edition of the Sâma-Veda Saṁhitâ, with Sâyaṇa's commentary, published by Satya-vrata Sâmashramî, a learned Vedic scholar of Calcutta. It is not known who this Mâdhava is, but Pandit Satyavrata states that he is referred to by Durga, the commentator of Yâska. We may, therefore, take Mâdhava to be an old commentator, and it is satis- factory to find that he indicates to us the way out of the difficulty of interpreting the phrases vishurûpe and virûpe, occuring so many times in the Ṛig-Veda, in connection with the couple of Day and Night. The word 'form' (rûpa) or body (vapus) can be used to denote the extent, duration, or length of days and nights, and virûpe would naturally denote the varying lengths of days and nights, in addition to their colour, which can be only two-fold, dark or bright. Taking our cue from Mâdhava, we may, therefore, interpret the first half of the verse as meaning "The twin pair assume various (nânâ) lengths (vapûṁshi); of the two one shines and the other is dark." But though the first half may be thus interpreted, another diffi- culty arises, as soon as we take up the third quarter of the verse. It says, "Two sisters are they, the dark (shyâvi) and the bright (arûshî)." Now the question is whether the two sisters (svasârau) here mentioned are the same as, or different from, the twin pair (yamyâ) mentioned in the first half of the verse. If we take them as

• See Sâma-Veda, Cal. Ed., Utta. 19, 4, 2, 3. The verse in the Veda is,—समानो अध्वा स्वस्रोरनंतस्तमन्यान्या चरतो देवशिष्टे । न मेथेते न तस्थतुः सुमेके नक्तोषासा समनसा विरूपे ॥ Mâdhava's Vivaraṇa says, सुमेके—संवत्सरे, दक्षिणायने रात्रेर्वृद्धिः, उत्तरायणे त्वह्नः, नक्तं रात्रिः— उषाकालप्रभृत्यहः।”

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. 135 identical, the third pâda or quarter of the verse becomes at once superfluous. If we take them as different, we must explain how and where the two pairs differ. The commentators have not been able to solve the difficulty, and they have, therefore, adopted the course of regarding the twins (yamyâ) and the sisters (svasârau) as identical, even at the risk of tautology. It will surely be admitted that this is not a satisfactory course, and that we ought to find a better explanation, if we can. This is not again the only place where two distinct couples of Day and Night are mentioned. There is another word in the Ṛig- Veda which denotes a pair of Day and Night. It is Ahanî, which does not mean 'two days' but Day and Night, for, in VI, 9, 1, we are expressly told that "there is a dark ahaḥ (day) and a bright ahaḥ (day)." Ahanî, therefore, means a couple of Day and Night, and we have seen that Ushâsâ-naktâ also means a couple of Day and Night. Are the two couples same or different ? If Ahanî be regarded as synonymous with Ushâsâ- naktâ or Aho-râtre, then the two couples would be identical; other- wise different. Fortunately, Ṛig. IV, 55, 3, furnishes us with the- means of solving this difficulty. There Ushâsâ-naktâ and Ahanî are separately invoked to grant protection to the worshipper, and the separate invocation clearly proves that the two couples are two separate dual deities, though each of them represents a couple of Day and Night.* Prof. Max Muller has noticed this difference between Ushâsâ-naktâ and Ahanî or the two Ahans; but he does not seem to have pushed it to its logical conclusion. If all the 360 days and nights of the year were of the same class as with us, there was no necessity of dividing them into two representative couples as Ushâsâ-naktâ

• Ṛig. IV, 55, 3;—उभे यथा नो अहनी निपात उषासानक्ता करतामद- ब्धे । See Max Muller's Lectures on the Science of Language, Vol. II, p. 534.

136 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS and Ahani. The general description “dark, bright and of various lengths” would have been quite sufficient to denote all the days and nights of the year. Therefore, if the distinction between Ushāsā-naktā and Ahanī, made in IV, 55, 3, is not to be ignored, we must find out an explanation of this distinction; and looking to the character of days and nights at different places on the surface of the earth from the Pole to the Equator, the only possible explanation that can be suggested is that the year spoken of in these passages was a circum-Polar year, made up of one long day and one long night, forming one pair, and a number of ordinary days and nights of various lengths, which, taking a single day and night as the type, can be described as the second couple, “bright, dark and of varying lengths.” There is no other place on the surface of the earth where the description holds good. At the Equator, we have only equal days and nights throughout the year, and they can be represented by a single couple “dark and bright, but always of the same length.” In fact, instead of virūpe the pair would be sarūpe. Between the Equator and the Arctic Circle, a day and night together never exceed twenty-four hours, though there may be a day of 23 hours, and a night of one hour and vice versa, as we approach the Arctic Circle. In this case, the days of the year will have to be represented by a typical couple, “dark and bright, but of various lengths, virūpe.” But as soon as we cross the Arctic Circle and go into “The Land of the Long Night,” the above description requires to be amended by adding to the first couple, another couple of the long day and the long night, the lengths of which would vary according to latitude. This second couple of the long day and the long night, which match each other, will have also to be designated as virūpe, with this difference, how- ever, that while the length of days and nights in the temperate

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. 137

zone would vary at the same place, the length of the long night and the long day would not vary at one and the same place, but only at different latitudes. Taking a couple of Day and Night, as representing the days and nights of the year, we shall have, therefore, to divide the different kinds of diurnal changes over the globe into three classes:— (i) At the Equator,—A single couple; dark and bright, but always of the same form, or length (sarûpe). (ii) Between the Equator and the Arctic Circle,—A single couple; dark and bright, but of various forms, or lengths, (virûpe). (iii) Between the Arctic Circle and the Pole,—Two couples; each dark and bright, but of various forms, or lengths, (virûpe). At the Pole, there is only one day and one night of six months each. Now if we have an express passage in the Ṛig- Veda (IV, 55, 3) indicating two different couples of Day and Night, Ushásâ-naktâ and Ahanî, it is evident that the aho-râtre represented by them are the days and nights of the Circum-Polar regions, and of those alone. In the light of IV, 55, 3, we must, therefore, interpret III, 55, 11, quoted above, as describing two couples, one of the twin pair and the other of two sisters. The verse must, therefore, be translated:—“The twin pair (the first couple) make many forms (lengths); of the two one shines and the other is dark. Two sisters are they, the shyâvî or the dark and arushî or the bright, (the second couple).” No part of the verse is thus rendered superfluous, and the whole becomes far more comprehensible than otherwise. We have seen that days and nights are represented by two distinct typical couples in the Ṛig-Veda Ushásâ- naktâ and Ahanî; and that if the distinction is not unmeaning we must take this to be the description of the days and

138 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. nights within the Arctic Circle. Whether Ahanî means a couple of Day and Night distinct from Uṣhásá-naktá in every place where the word occurs, it is difficult to say. But that in some places, at least, it denotes a peculiar couple of the Day and Night, not included in, and different from, Uṣhásá-naktá is evident from IV, 55, 3. Now if Ahanî really means the couple of the long day and the long night, as distinguished from the ordinary days and nights, there is another way in which these two couples can be differentiated from each other. The ordinary days and nights follow each other closely, the day is succeeded by the night and the night by the day; and the two members of the couple, representing these days and nights, cannot be described as separated from each other. But the long night and the long day, though of equal duration, do not follow each other in close succession. The long night occurs about the time when the sun is at the winter solstice, and the long day when he is at the sum- mer solstice; and these two solstitial points are separated by 180°, being opposite to each other in the ecliptic. This character of Ahanî seems to have been traditionally known in the time of the Âraṇyakas. Thus the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka, I, 2, 3, in discussing the personified Year,* first says that the Year has one head, and two different mouths, and then remarks that all this is 'season-characteristic,' which the commentator explains by stating that the Year-God is said to have two mouths 'because it has two Ayanas, the northern and the southern, which include the seasons. But the statement important for our purpose is the one which follows next. The Âraṇyaka continues "To the right and the left side of the Year- God (are) the bright and the dark (days); and the following verse refers to it:—'Thy one (form) is bright, thy another sacrificial (dark), two

• Taitt. Âran. 1, 2, 3,--एक हि शिरो । नाना मुखे । कृत्स्नं तदृतुलक्षणम् ॥

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. 139 Ahans of different forms, thou art like Dyau. Thou, O Self- dependent ! protectest all magic powers, O Pûṣhan ! let thy bounty be here auspicious.'* The verse, or the Mantra, here referred to is Ṛig. VI, 58, 1. Pûṣhan is there compared to Dyau and is said to have two forms, dark and bright, like the Ahanî. These dark and bright forms of Ahanî are said to constitute the right and the left side of the Year-God, that is, the two opposite parts of the body of the personified year. In other words the passage clearly states that the dark and the bright part of Ahanî, do not follow each other closely, but are situated on the diametrically opposite sides of the year. This can only be the case if the couple of Day and Night, represent- ed by Ahanî, be taken to denote the long night and the long day in the Arctic regions. There the long night is matched by the long day, and while the one occurs when the sun is at the winter-solstice, the other occurs when he is at the summer-solstice. The two parts of Ahanî are, therefore, very correctly represented as forming the right and the left side of the Year-God in the Âraṇyaka, and the passage thus materially supports the view about the nature of Ahanî mentioned above. Lastly, we have express passages in the Ṛig-veda where a long day is described. In V, 54, 5, an extended daily course (dîrgham yojanam) of the sun is mentioned and the Maruts are said to have extended their strength and greatness in a similar way.† But the most explicit state- ment about the long day is found in X, 138, 3. This

• Taitt. Âraṇyaka, 1, 2, 4,—शुक्लकृष्णे संवत्सरस्य । दक्षिणवामयोः पार्श्वयोः । तस्यैषा भवति । शुक्लं ते अन्यद्यजतं ते अन्यद्विषुरूपे अहनी द्यौरि- वासि । विश्वा हि माया अवसि स्वधावो भद्रा ते पूषन्निह रातिरस्तु । नात्र भुवनं। न पूषा न पशवः । नादित्यः । संवत्सर एव प्रत्यक्षेण प्रियतमं विद्यात् । † Ṛig. V, 54, 5—तद्वीर्यं वो मरुतो महित्वनं दीर्घं ततान सूर्यो न योजनम् ।

140 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. hymn celebrates the exploits of Indra, all of which are per- formed in aerial or heavenly regions. In the first verse the killing of Vṛitra, and the releasing of the dawns and the waters are mentioned; and in the second the sun is said to have been made to shine by the same process. The third verse* is as follows:— Vi sūryo madhye amuchad rathan divo vidad dāsāya pratimānam āryaḥ । Dṛiḍhāni Pipror asurasya māyinaḥ Indro vyāsyach chakṛivāṁ Ṛijishvanā ॥ The fourth, fifth and the sixth verses all refer to the destru- ction of Vṛitra's forts, the chastisement of Uṣhas and the placing of the moons in the heaven. But the third verse quoted above is alone important for our purpose. The words are simple and easy, and the verse may be thus translated, "The sun unyoked his car in the midst of heaven; the Ârya found a counter-measure (pratimānam) for the Dāsa. Indra, acting with Ṛijishvan, overthrew the solid forts of Pipru, the conjur- ing Asura." It is the first half of the verse that is relevant to our purpose. The sun is said to have unyoked his car, not at sunset, or on the horizon, but in the midst of heaven, there to rest for some time. There is no uncertainty about it, for the words are so clear; and the commentators have found it difficult to explain this extraordinary conduct of the sun in the midway of the heavens. Mr. Griffith says that it is, perhaps, an allusion to an eclipse, or to the detention of the sun to enable the Aryans to complete the overthrow of their ene- mies. Both of these suggestions are, however, not satisfactory. During a solar eclipse the sun being temporarily hidden by the moon is invisible wholly or partially and is not besides stationary. The description that the sun unyoked his car in the mid-heaven

• Ṛig. X, 138, 3—वि सूर्यो मध्ये अमुचद्रथं दिवो. विंदद्दासाय प्रति- मानमार्यः । दृळ्हानि पिप्रोरसुरस्य मायिनः इंद्रो व्यासच्चकृवाँ ऋजिश्वना ॥

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. 141 cannot, therefore, apply to the eclipsed sun. As regards the- other suggestion, viz., that the sun remained stationary for a while to allow his favourite race, the Aryans, to overthrow their enemies, it seems to have had its origin in the Biblical passage (Joshua, X, 12, 13), where the sun is said to have stood still, at the word of Joshua, until the people had avenged them- selves upon their enemies. But there is no authority for importing this Biblical idea into the Ṛig-Veda. Indra's exploits are described in a number of hymns in the Ṛig-Veda, but in no other hymn he is said to have made the sun stand still for the Aryans. We must, therefore, reject both the explanations suggested by Griffith. Sâyaṇa gets over the difficulty by interpreting the phrase, ratham vi amuchat madhye divaḥ, as meaning that “ the sun loosened (vi-amuchat) his carriage, that is, set it free to travel, towards the middle (madhye) of heaven, (ratham prasthânâya vi-muktavân).” Sâyaṇa's meaning, therefore, is that when Indra obtained compensation from Vṛitra, he let loose- the chariot of the sun to travel towards the midst of the sky. But the construction is evidently a strained one. The verb vi much is used in about a dozen places in the Ṛig-Veda in relation to horses, and everywhere it means to ‘unharness,’ ‘unyoke,’ or ‘separate the horses from the carriage for rest;’ and even Sâyaṇa has interpreted it in the same way. Thus vi-muchya is explained by him as rathat vishliṣhya in I, 104, 1, and rathât vi-muchya in III, 32, 1, and rathât visṛijya in X, 160, 1, (also compare I, 171, 1 ; I, 177, 4 ; VI, 40, 1). The most natural meaning of the present verse would, therefore, be that the ‘sun unyoked his carriage.’ But even supposing that vi much can be interpreted to mean ‘to loosen for travel,’ the expression would be appropriate only when there is an antecedent stoppage or slow motion of the sun. The question why the sun stopped or slackened his motion in

142 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. the midst of the sky would, therefore, still remain unsolved. The phrase divaḥ madhye naturally means ‘in the midst of the sky,’ and cannot be interpreted to mean ‘towards the mid-heaven.’ Of course if the sun was below the horizon, we may describe him as having loosened his horses for travel as in V, 62, 1; but even there the meaning seems to be that the horses rested at the place. In the present case the sun is already in the midst of heaven, and we cannot take him below the horizon without a pal- pable distortion of meaning. Nor can we properly explain the action of retaliation (pratimānam), if we accept Sâyaṇa's inter- pretation. We must, therefore, interpret the first half of the verse to mean that “the sun unyoked his carriage in the midst of heaven.” There is another passage in the Ṛig-Veda which speaks of the sun halting in the midst of heaven. In VII, 87, 5, the king Varuṇa is said to have made “the golden (sun) rock like a swing in the heaven” (chakre divi preṅkhaṁ hiraṇmayam), clearly meaning that the sun swayed backwards and forwards in the heaven being visible all the time, (cf. also VII, 88, 3). The idea expressed in the present verse is exactly the same, for even within the Arctic regions the sun will appear as swinging only during the long continuous day, when he does not go below the horizon once every twenty-four hours. There is, therefore, nothing strange or uncommon in the present verse which says that “ the sun unyoked his carriage for some time in the midst of the sky ; ' and we need not be impatient to escape from the natural meaning of the verse. A long halt of the sun in the midst of the heaven is here clearly described, and we must take it to refer to the long day in the Arctic region. The statement in the second line further supports the same view. European scholars appear to have been misled, in this instance, by the words Ārya and Dâsa, which they are accustomed to interpret as

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT 143 meaning the Aryan and the non-Aryan race. But though the words may be interpreted in this way in some passages, such is not the case everywhere. The word Dâsa is applied to Indra's enemies in a number of places. Thus Shambara is called a Dâsa (IV, 30, 14,) and the same adjective is applied to Pipru in VIII, 32, 2, and to Namuchi in V, 30, 7. Indra is said to inspire fear into the Dâsa in X, 120, 2, and in II, 11, 2, he is described as having rent the Dâsa, who considered himself immortal. In the verse under consideration Indra's victory over Pipru is celebrated, and we know that Pipru is elsewhere called a Dâsa. It is, therefore, quite natural to suppose that the words Arya and Dâsa in the above verse, refer to Indra and Pipru, and not to the Aryan and the non-Aryan race. The exploits described are all heavenly, and it jars with the context to take a single sentence in the whole hymn as referring to the victory of the Aryan over the non-Aryan race. There is again the word pratimâna (lit. counter- measure), which denotes that what has been done is by way of retaliation, a sort of counter-poise or counter-blast, with a view to avenge the mischief done by Dâsa. A battle between the Aryans and the non-Aryans cannot be so described unless a previous defeat of the Aryans is first alluded to. The plain mean- ing of the verse, therefore, is that the sun was made to halt in the midst of the sky, producing a long day, and Indra thus found a counter-poise for Dâsa, his enemy. For we know that dark- ness is brought on by the Dâsa, and it is he who brings on the long night; but if the Dâsa made the night long, Indra retalia- ted or counter-acted by making the day as long as the night of the Dâsa. The long night of the Arctic regions is, we have seen, matched by the long day in those regions, and the present verse expresses the same idea of matching the one by the other. There is no reference to the victory of

144 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. the Aryan race over the non-Aryans, or anything of that kind as supposed by Western scholars. Sâyaṇa, who had no historic theories to mislead him, has rightly interpreted Ârya and Dâsa in this verse as referring to Indra and his enemy; but he, in his turn, has misinterpreted, as shewn above, the first half of the verse in regard to the sun's long halt in the midst of the sky. The misinterpretation of the second hemistich comes from Western scholars, like Muir, who interprets Ârya, as meaning the Aryans and Dâsa, the non-Aryans. This shows how in the absence of the true key to the meaning of a passage, we may be led away by current theories, even where the words are plain and simple in themselves. We thus see that the Ṛig-Veda speaks of two different couples of Day and Night, one alone of which represents the ordinary days and nights in the year, and the second, the Ahanî, is a distinct couple by itself, forming, according to the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka, the right and the left hand side of the Year, indicat- ing the long Arctic day and night. The Taittirîya Saṁhitâ again gives us in clear terms a tradition that in the former age the night was so long that men were afraid it would not dawn. We have also a number of expressions in the Ṛig-Veda denoting ‘long nights’ or ‘long and ghastly darkness,’ and also the ‘long journey’ of the sun. Prayers are also offered to Vedic deities to enable the worshipper to reach safely the end of the night, the ‘other boundary of which is not known.’ Finally we have an express text declaring that the sun halted in the midst of the sky and thereby retaliated the mischief brought on by Dâsa's causing the long night. Thus we have not only the long day and the long night mentioned in the Ṛig-Veda, but the idea that the two match each other is also found therein, while the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka tells us, that they form the opposite sides of the Year-God. Besides the passages

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. 145 proving the long duration of the dawn, we have, therefore, sufficient independent evidence to hold that the long night in the Arctic regions and its counterpart the long day were both known to the poets of the Ṛig-Veda, and the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ distinctly informs us that it was a phenomenon of the former (purâ) age. I shall close this chapter with a short discussion of another Circum-Polar characteristic, I mean the southern course of the sun. It is previously stated, that the sun can never appear over- head at any station in the temperate or the frigid zone, and that an observer stationed within these zones in the northern hemi- sphere will see the sun to his right hand or towards the south, while at the North Pole the sun will seem to rise from the south. Now the word dakshiṇa in Vedic Sanskrit denotes both the 'right hand' and the 'south,' as it does in other Aryan languages ; for, as observed by Prof. Sayce, these people had to face the rising sun with their right hands to the south, in addressing their gods, and hence "Sanskrit dakshiṇa, Welsh dehau and Old Irish des all mean at once 'right hand' and 'south'."* With this explanation before us, we can now understand how in a number of passages in the Ṛig-Veda Western scholars translate dakshiṇa by 'right side,' where Indian scholars take the word to mean 'the southern direction.' There is a third meaning of dakshiṇâ, viz., 'largess' or 'guerdon,' and in some places the claims of rich largesses seem to have been pushed too far. Thus when the suns are said to be only for dakshiṇâvats in I, 125, 6, it looks very probable that originally the expression had some reference to the southern direction rather than to the gifts given at sacrifices. In III, 58, 1, Sûrya is called the son of Dakshiṇâ, and even if Dakshiṇâ be here taken to mean the Dawn, yet the question why the Dawn was called

• See Sayce's Introduction to the Science of Language, Vol. II, p. 130.