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

MONTHS AND SEASONS. 181 nights', it could mean nothing except 'the long continuous night,' and if so, why not take mânushâ yugâ to represent the period of the solar year, which remains after the long night is excluded from it ? As observed by me before, Prof. Max Muller has correctly translated kṣhapaḥ by 'continuous nights,' but has missed the true meaning of the expression mânushâ yugâ in this place. A similar mistake has been committed with respect to IV, 16, 19, where the expression is kṣhapaḥ madema śaradas cha pûrvîḥ. Here, in spite of the accent, Max Muller takes kṣhapaḥ as accusative and so does Sâyaṇa. But Sâyaṇa correctly inter- prets the expression as 'May we rejoice for many autumns (seasons) and nights.' 'Seasons and nights' is a compound phrase, and the particle cha becomes unmeaning if we split it up and take nights (kṣhapaḥ) with one verb, and seasons (śaradaḥ) with another. Of course so long as the Arctic theory was unknown the phrase 'seasons and nights' or 'mânushâ yugâ and nights' was unintelligible, inasmuch as nights were included in the seasons or the yugas. But Prof. Max Muller has himself suggested the solution of the difficulty by interpreting kṣhapaḥ as 'continuous nights' in II. 2, 2; and adopting this rendering, we can, with greater propriety, take seasons and nights together, as indicated by the particle cha, and understand the expression to mean a complete solar year including the long night. The addition of kṣhapaḥ to mânushâ yugâ, therefore, further supports the conclusion that the phrase indicated a period of sunshine as stated above. There are many other passages in translating which unnecessary confusion or obscurity has been caused by taking mânushâ yugâ to mean human tribes; but a discussion of these is not relevant to the subject in hand. An independent corroboration of the conclusion we have drawn from the legends of the Dashagvas and Dirghatamas