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

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. 135 identical, the third pâda or quarter of the verse becomes at once superfluous. If we take them as different, we must explain how and where the two pairs differ. The commentators have not been able to solve the difficulty, and they have, therefore, adopted the course of regarding the twins (yamyâ) and the sisters (svasârau) as identical, even at the risk of tautology. It will surely be admitted that this is not a satisfactory course, and that we ought to find a better explanation, if we can. This is not again the only place where two distinct couples of Day and Night are mentioned. There is another word in the Ṛig- Veda which denotes a pair of Day and Night. It is Ahanî, which does not mean 'two days' but Day and Night, for, in VI, 9, 1, we are expressly told that "there is a dark ahaḥ (day) and a bright ahaḥ (day)." Ahanî, therefore, means a couple of Day and Night, and we have seen that Ushâsâ-naktâ also means a couple of Day and Night. Are the two couples same or different ? If Ahanî be regarded as synonymous with Ushâsâ- naktâ or Aho-râtre, then the two couples would be identical; other- wise different. Fortunately, Ṛig. IV, 55, 3, furnishes us with the- means of solving this difficulty. There Ushâsâ-naktâ and Ahanî are separately invoked to grant protection to the worshipper, and the separate invocation clearly proves that the two couples are two separate dual deities, though each of them represents a couple of Day and Night.* Prof. Max Muller has noticed this difference between Ushâsâ-naktâ and Ahanî or the two Ahans; but he does not seem to have pushed it to its logical conclusion. If all the 360 days and nights of the year were of the same class as with us, there was no necessity of dividing them into two representative couples as Ushâsâ-naktâ

• Ṛig. IV, 55, 3;—उभे यथा नो अहनी निपात उषासानक्ता करतामद- ब्धे । See Max Muller's Lectures on the Science of Language, Vol. II, p. 534.