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

144 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. the Aryan race over the non-Aryans, or anything of that kind as supposed by Western scholars. Sâyaṇa, who had no historic theories to mislead him, has rightly interpreted Ârya and Dâsa in this verse as referring to Indra and his enemy; but he, in his turn, has misinterpreted, as shewn above, the first half of the verse in regard to the sun's long halt in the midst of the sky. The misinterpretation of the second hemistich comes from Western scholars, like Muir, who interprets Ârya, as meaning the Aryans and Dâsa, the non-Aryans. This shows how in the absence of the true key to the meaning of a passage, we may be led away by current theories, even where the words are plain and simple in themselves. We thus see that the Ṛig-Veda speaks of two different couples of Day and Night, one alone of which represents the ordinary days and nights in the year, and the second, the Ahanî, is a distinct couple by itself, forming, according to the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka, the right and the left hand side of the Year, indicat- ing the long Arctic day and night. The Taittirîya Saṁhitâ again gives us in clear terms a tradition that in the former age the night was so long that men were afraid it would not dawn. We have also a number of expressions in the Ṛig-Veda denoting ‘long nights’ or ‘long and ghastly darkness,’ and also the ‘long journey’ of the sun. Prayers are also offered to Vedic deities to enable the worshipper to reach safely the end of the night, the ‘other boundary of which is not known.’ Finally we have an express text declaring that the sun halted in the midst of the sky and thereby retaliated the mischief brought on by Dâsa's causing the long night. Thus we have not only the long day and the long night mentioned in the Ṛig-Veda, but the idea that the two match each other is also found therein, while the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka tells us, that they form the opposite sides of the Year-God. Besides the passages