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

MONTHS AND SEASONS. 171 his decayed power in the winter. But with the expression "like the sun dwelling in darkness" before us, in the legend of Vandana (I, 117, 5), we must make these legends refer not merely to the decayed power of the sun in winter, but to his actual sinking below the horizon for some time. Bearing this in mind, let us try to see what inference we can deduce, so far as the subject in hand is concerned, from the legend of Dîrghatamas. The statement in the myth or legend, which is most im- portant for our purpose, is contained in I, 158, 6. The verse may be literally translated as follows:—"Dîrghatamas, the son of Mamatâ, having grown decrepit in the tenth yuga, becomes a Brahman charioteer of the waters wending to their goal."* The only expressions which require elucidation in this verse are "in the tenth yuga" and "waters wending to their goal." Otherwise the story is plain enough. Dîrghatamas grows old in the tenth yuga, and riding on waters, as the Mahâbhârata story has it, goes along with them to the place which is the goal of these waters. But scholars are not agreed as to what yuga means. Some take it to mean a cycle of years, presumably five as in the Vedânga-Jyotiṣha, and invest Dîrghatamas with infirmity at the age of fifty. The Petersburg Lexicon would interpret yuga, wherever it occurs in the Ṛig-Veda, to mean not 'a period of time,' but 'a generation,' or 'the relation of descent from a common stock'; and it is followed by Grassmann in this respect. According to these scholars the phrase "in the tenth yuga" in the above verse would, therefore, signify "in the tenth generation" whatever that may mean. Indeed, there seems to be a kind of prejudice against interpreting yuga as meaning 'a period of time' in the Ṛig-Veda, and it is, therefore, necessary to examine the

• Ṛig. I, 158, 6— दीर्घतमा मामतेयो जुजुर्वान् दशमे युगे । अपामर्थं यतीनां ब्रह्मा भवति सारथिः ॥