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

MONTHS AND SEASONS. 157 months of the year. But this explanation, reasonable though it was, did not commend itself, or we might even say, occur to Vedic scholars, who believed that the home of the Aryans lay somewhere in Central Asia. It is, therefore, satisfactory to find that the idea of different suns producing different months is recognised so expressly in the Taittirīya Âraṇyaka, which quotes a Vedic text, not now available, in support thereof, and finally pronounces in favour of the theory, which regards the seven suns as presiding over seven different heavenly regions and thereby producing different seasons, in spite of the objection that it would lead to the assumption of thousands of suns—an objection, which the Âraṇyaka disposes of summarily by observing that eight is a settled number, and that we have no right to change it. That this explanation is the most probable of all is further evident from Ṛig. IX, 114, 3, which says "There are seven sky-regions (sapta dishaḥ), with their different suns (nānā sūryāḥ), there are seven Hotṛis as priests, those who are the seven gods, the Âdityas,—with them, O Soma! protect us." Here nānā-sūryāḥ is an adjective which qualifies dishaḥ (sapta), and the co-relation between seven regions and seven suns is thus expressly recognised. Therefore, the simplest explanation of Aditi's legend is that she presented to the gods, that is, brought forth into heavens, her seven sons, the Âdityas, to form the seven months of sunshine in the place. She had an eighth son, but he was born in an undeveloped state, or, was, what we may call, still- born; evidently meaning that the eighth month was not a month of sunshine, or that the period of darkness at the place commen- ced with the eighth month. All this occured not in this age, but in the previous age, and the words pūrvyam yugam in X, 72, 9, are very important from this point of view. The word yuga is evi- dently used to denote a period of time in the first and second verses of the hymn, which refer to the former age of the gods;