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

CHAPTER V. THE VEDIC DAWNS. Dawn-hymns the most beautiful in the Rig-Veda—The Deity fully described, unobscured by personification—First hints about the long duration of dawn—Recitation of a thousand verses, , or even the whole Rig-Veda, while the dawn lasts—Three or five-fold division of the dawn—Both imply a long dawn—The same inferred from the two words Ushas and Vyushti—Three Rig-Vedic passages about long dawns, hitherto misunderstood, discussed—Long interval of several days between the first appearance of light and sunrise—Expressly mentioned in the Rig-Veda, VII, 76, 3—Sâyana's explanation artificial and unsatisfactory—Existence of many dawns before sunrise— Reason why dawn is addressed in the plural in the Rig-Veda —The plural address not honorific—Nor denotes dawns of consecutive days—Proves a team of continuous dawns—The last view confirmed by the Taittirîya Samhitâ, IV, 3, 11 — Dawns as 30 sisters—Direct authority from the Taittrîya Brâh- mana for holding that they were continuous or unseparated— Sâyana's explanation of 30 dawns examined—Thirty dawns described as thirty steps of a single dawn—Rotatory motion of the dawn, like a wheel, directly mentioned in the Rig-Veda —Their reaching the same appointed place day by day—All indicate a team of thirty closely-gathered dawns—Results summed up—Establish the Polar character of the Vedic dawns—Possible variation in the duration of the Vedic dawn —The legend of Indra shattering the Dawn's car explained— Direct passages showing that the dawns so described were the events of a former age—The Vedic Dawns Polar in character. The Ṛig-Veda, we have seen, does not contain distinct references to a day and a night of six months' duration, though the deficiency is more than made up by parallel passages from the Iranian scriptures. But in the case of the dawn, the long continuous dawn with its revolving splendours, which is the special characteristic of the North