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

204 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. Hêlios representing the days, and 350 sheep representing the nights. He also notices that in German mythology 700 gold rings of Wieland, the smith, are spoken of, and comparing the number with 720 sons of Agni mentioned in I, 164, 11, he draws from it the conclusion that a year of 350 days is also represented in the German mythology. This year is shorter by ten days than the civil year of 360 days, or falls short of the full solar year by 15 days. It is, therefore, clear, that if a year of 350 days existed before the Aryan separation, it must have been followed by a continuous night of ten days ; while, where the year was of 300 days, the long night extended over 60 days of 24 hours each. We shall thus have different kinds of long nights; and it is necessary to see if we can collect evi- dence to indicate the longest duration of the night known be- fore the Aryan separation. Speaking of the cows or oxen of Hêlios, as stated in the passage quoted above, Prof. Max Mul- ler goes on to observe :- "The cows or oxen of Hêlios thus receive their back- ground from the Veda, but what is told of them by Homer is by no means clear. When it is said that the companions of Odysseus consumed the oxen of Hêlios, and that they thus forfeited their return home, we can hardly take this in the modern sense of consuming or wasting their days, thought it may be difficult to assign any other definite meaning to it. Equally puzzling is the fable alluded to in the Homeric hymn that Hermes stole the oxen of Apollon and killed two of them. The number of Apollon's oxen is given as fifty (others give the number as 100 cows, twelve oxen and one bull), which looks like the number of weeks in the lunar year, but why Hermes should be represented as carrying off the whole herd and then killing two, is difficult to guess, unless we refer it to the two additional months in a cycle of four years." In the light of the Arctic theory the puzzle here referred to is solved without any difficulty. The stealing away or the