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

the phrases 'thirty yojanas,' 'thirty sisters,' and 'thirty steps' as different versions of one and the same fact, viz., the circuits of the dawn along the Polar horizon. The phrase 'each its destined course' also becomes intelligible in this case, for though thirty dawns complete thirty rounds, each may well be described as following its own definite course. The words pari yanti in the text literally apply to a circular (pari) motion, (cf. the words pari-ukshaņam, pari-staraņam, &c.); and the same term is used in the Taittirîya Samhitâ with reference to 'thirty sisters'. The word yojana primarily means 'a chariot' (VIII, 72, 6), and then it came to denote 'distance to be accomplished without unharnes- sing the horses', or what we, in the vernacular, call a 'ṭappâ.' Now this ṭappâ, or 'the journey to be accomplished without unharnessing the horses', may be a day's journey, and Prof. Max Muller has in one place interpreted the yojana in this way.* In V, 54, 5, the Maruts are said "to have extended their greatness as far as the sun extends his daily course," and the word in the original for 'daily course' is yojanum. Accepting this meaning, we can interpret the expression 'the dawns forthwith go round (pari yanti) thirty yojanas' to mean that the dawns complete thirty daily rounds as at the North Pole. That circular motion is here intended is further evident from III, 61, 3, which says, in distinct terms, "Wending towards the same goal (samânam artham), O Newly-born (Dawn)! turn on like a wheel (chakramiva â vavṛitsva)."† Although the word navyasi (newly-born) is here in the vocative case, yet the meaning is that the dawn, ever anew or becoming new every day, revolves like a wheel. Now a wheel may either move in

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• See S. B. E. Series, Vol. XXXII, pp. 177 and 325. † Ṛig. III, 61, 3,—उषः प्रतीची भुवनानि विश्वोध्वा॑ तिष्ठस्य॒मृत॑स्य केतुः। स॒मानमर्थं॑ चरणीयमाना च॒क्रमिव॒ नव्य॒स्या व॑वृत्स्व ॥