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

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. 133 and they literally mean ‘make many bodies or forms.’ We have thus a two-fold description of the couple ; it is called the shining and the dark, and also described as possessed of many forms. In I, 123, 7, the couple of Day and Night is said to be vishurûpe; while in other places the adjective virûpe is used in the same sense. It is evident, therefore, that the ‘bodies’ or ‘forms’ intended to be denoted by these words must be different from the two-fold character of the couple as shining and dark; and if so, the phrases vishurûpe, virûpe or nânâ vapûmṣhi used in connection with the couple of Day and Night must be taken to mean something different from ‘bright and dark’, if these expressions are not to be considered as superfluous or tautological. Sâyaṇa. interprets these phrases as referring to different colours (rûpa), like black, white, &c., and some of the Western scholars seem to have adopted this interpreta- tion. But I cannot see the propriety of assigning different colours to Day and Night. Are we to suppose that we may have sometimes green, violet, yellow or blue days and nights ? Again though the word rûpa lends itself to this construction, yet vapûmṣhi cannot ordinarily be so understood. The question does not, however, seem to have attracted the serious atten- tion of the commentators; so that even Griffith translates vishurûpe by ‘unlike in hue’ in I, 123, 7. The Naktoshâsâ are described as virûpe also in I, 113, 3, but there too Sâyaṇa gives the same explanation. It does not appear to have occurred to any one that the point requires any further thought. Happily, in the case of Ṛig. I, 113, 3, we have, however, the advantage of consulting a commentator older than Sâyaṇa. The verse occurs in the Uttarârchika of Sâma-Veda (19, 4, 2, 3), and Mâdhava in his Vivaraṇa, a commentary on the Sâma-Veda, explains virûpe thus:— “In the Dakshiṇâyana during the year there is the increase of