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

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