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

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT 143 meaning the Aryan and the non-Aryan race. But though the words may be interpreted in this way in some passages, such is not the case everywhere. The word Dâsa is applied to Indra's enemies in a number of places. Thus Shambara is called a Dâsa (IV, 30, 14,) and the same adjective is applied to Pipru in VIII, 32, 2, and to Namuchi in V, 30, 7. Indra is said to inspire fear into the Dâsa in X, 120, 2, and in II, 11, 2, he is described as having rent the Dâsa, who considered himself immortal. In the verse under consideration Indra's victory over Pipru is celebrated, and we know that Pipru is elsewhere called a Dâsa. It is, therefore, quite natural to suppose that the words Arya and Dâsa in the above verse, refer to Indra and Pipru, and not to the Aryan and the non-Aryan race. The exploits described are all heavenly, and it jars with the context to take a single sentence in the whole hymn as referring to the victory of the Aryan over the non-Aryan race. There is again the word pratimâna (lit. counter- measure), which denotes that what has been done is by way of retaliation, a sort of counter-poise or counter-blast, with a view to avenge the mischief done by Dâsa. A battle between the Aryans and the non-Aryans cannot be so described unless a previous defeat of the Aryans is first alluded to. The plain mean- ing of the verse, therefore, is that the sun was made to halt in the midst of the sky, producing a long day, and Indra thus found a counter-poise for Dâsa, his enemy. For we know that dark- ness is brought on by the Dâsa, and it is he who brings on the long night; but if the Dâsa made the night long, Indra retalia- ted or counter-acted by making the day as long as the night of the Dâsa. The long night of the Arctic regions is, we have seen, matched by the long day in those regions, and the present verse expresses the same idea of matching the one by the other. There is no reference to the victory of