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

94 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. Para ṛiṇâ sâvîr adha mat-kṛitâni mâ aham râjan anya-kṛitena bhojam । Avyushṭâ in nu bhûyasîr ushâsa â no jîvân Varuṇa tâsu shadhi ॥ Literally translated this means "Remove far the debts (sins) incurred by me. May I not, O King ! be affected by others' doings. Verily, many dawns (have) not fully (vi) flashed forth. O Varuṇa ! direct that we may be alive during them."* The first part of this verse contains a prayer usually addressed to Gods, and we have nothing to say with respect to it, so far as the subject in hand is concerned. The only expression necessary to be discussed is bhûyasîh ushâsaḥ avyushṭâḥ in the third quarter of the verse. The first two words present no difficulty. They mean 'many dawns.' Now avyushṭa is a negative participle from vyushṭa, which again is derived from ushṭa with vi prefixed. I have refer- red to the distinction between ushas and vyushṭi suggested by the three-fold or the five-fold division of the dawn. Vyushṭi, according to the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, means 'day,' or rather 'the flashing forth of the dawn into sunrise' ; and the word a+vi+ushṭa, therefore, means "not-fully-flashed-forth into sunrise." But Sâyaṇa and others do not seem to have kept in view this distinc- tion between the meanings of ushas and vyushṭi ; or if they did, they did not know or had not in their mind the phenomenon of the long continuous dawn in the Arctic regions, a dawn, that lasted for several day-long periods of time before the sun's orb appeared on the horizon. The expression, bhûyasîh ushâsaḥ avyushṭâḥ, which literally means "many dawns have not dawned, or fully flashed forth," was, therefore, a riddle to these com- mentators. Every dawn, they saw, was followed by sunrise; and

• Ṛig. II, 28, 9,—पर ऋणा सावीरध मत्कृतानि माहं राजन्नन्यकृतेन भोजम् । अव्युष्टा इन्नु भूयसीरुषास आ नो जीवान्वरुण तासु शाधि ॥