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

THE COWS' WALK. 203 walk. In plain language this means, if it means anything, that the oldest Aryan year was one of ten months followed by the long night, during which the cows were again carried away by the powers of darkness. We have seen that the oldest Ro- man year was of ten months, and the Avesta, as will be shown later on, also speaks of ten months' summer prevailing in the Airyana Vaejo before the home was invaded by the evil spirit, who brought on ice and severe winter in that place. A year of ten months with a long night of two months may thus be taken to be known before the Aryan separation, and the refer- ences to it in the Vedic literature are neither isolated nor ima- ginary. Thye are the relics of ancient history, which have been faithfully preserved in the sacrificial literature of India, and if they were hitherto misunderstood it was because the true key required for their solution was as yet unknown. But as stated in the previous chapter, a year in the circum- polar region will always have a varying number of the months of sunshine according to latitude. Although, therefore, there is sufficient evidence to establish the existence of a year of ten months, we cannot hold that it was the only year known in ancient times. In fact we have seen that the legend of Aditi indicates the existence of the seven months of sunshine ; and a band of thirty continuous dawns supports the same conclusion. But it seems that a year of ten months of sunshine was more prevalent, or was selected as the mean of the different vary- ing years. The former view is rendered probable by the fact that of the Aṅgirases of various forms (virûpas) the Navag- vas and the Dashagvas are said to be the principal or the most important in the Ṛig-Veda (X, 62, 6). But whichever view we adopt, the existence of a year of seven, eight, nine, ten or eleven months of sunshine follows as a matter of course, if the ancient Aryan home was within the Arctic circle. Prof. Max Muller, in the passage quoted above, points out that the old Greek year probably consisted of 350 days, the 350 oxen of