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

98 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. that many days passed between the first appearance of light on the horizon and the uprising of the sun (VII, 76, 3). We cannot, therefore, accept the explanation of consecutive dawns, nor that of Yâska, nor of Sâyaṇa regarding the use of the plural number in this case. The fact is that the Vedic dawn represents one long physical phenomenon which can be spoken of in plural by suppo- sing it to be split up into smaller day-long portions. It is thus that we find Uṣhas addressed sometimes in the plural, and some- times in the singular number. There is no other explanation on which we can account for and explain the various descriptions of the dawn found in the different hymns. But to clinch the matter, the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, IV, 3, 11, expressly states that the dawns are thirty sisters, or, in other words, they are thirty in number, and that they go round and round in five groups, reaching the same appointed place and having the same banner for all. The whole of this Anuvâka may be said to be practically a dawn-hymn of 15 verses, which are used as Man- tras for the laying down of certain emblematical bricks called the 'dawn-bricks' on the sacrificial altar. There are sixteen such bricks to be placed on the altar, and the Anuvâka in question gives 15 Mantras, or verses, to be used on the occasion, the 16th being recorded elsewhere. These 15 verses, together with their Brâhmaṇa (T. S., V, 3, 4, 7), are so important for our purpose that I have appended to this chapter the original passages, with their translation, comparing the version in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ with that of the Atharva-Veda, in the case of those verses which are found in the latter. The first verse of the section or the Anuvâka, is used for laying down the first dawn-brick, and it speaks only of a single dawn first appearing on the horizon. In the second verse we have, however, a couple