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

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. 145 proving the long duration of the dawn, we have, therefore, sufficient independent evidence to hold that the long night in the Arctic regions and its counterpart the long day were both known to the poets of the Ṛig-Veda, and the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ distinctly informs us that it was a phenomenon of the former (purâ) age. I shall close this chapter with a short discussion of another Circum-Polar characteristic, I mean the southern course of the sun. It is previously stated, that the sun can never appear over- head at any station in the temperate or the frigid zone, and that an observer stationed within these zones in the northern hemi- sphere will see the sun to his right hand or towards the south, while at the North Pole the sun will seem to rise from the south. Now the word dakshiṇa in Vedic Sanskrit denotes both the 'right hand' and the 'south,' as it does in other Aryan languages ; for, as observed by Prof. Sayce, these people had to face the rising sun with their right hands to the south, in addressing their gods, and hence "Sanskrit dakshiṇa, Welsh dehau and Old Irish des all mean at once 'right hand' and 'south'."* With this explanation before us, we can now understand how in a number of passages in the Ṛig-Veda Western scholars translate dakshiṇa by 'right side,' where Indian scholars take the word to mean 'the southern direction.' There is a third meaning of dakshiṇâ, viz., 'largess' or 'guerdon,' and in some places the claims of rich largesses seem to have been pushed too far. Thus when the suns are said to be only for dakshiṇâvats in I, 125, 6, it looks very probable that originally the expression had some reference to the southern direction rather than to the gifts given at sacrifices. In III, 58, 1, Sûrya is called the son of Dakshiṇâ, and even if Dakshiṇâ be here taken to mean the Dawn, yet the question why the Dawn was called

• See Sayce's Introduction to the Science of Language, Vol. II, p. 130.