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

234 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. texts showing that the fight with Vritra was annual and fought in winter —Inexplicable except on the Arctic theory —The exact date of Indra's fight with Vritra preserved in the Ṛig- Veda —The real meaning of chatvârimshyâm sharadi explained —Shambara found on the 40th day of Sharad—Denotes the commencement of the long night —Vedic passages shewing Sharad to be the last season of sunshine —Paleographical evidence for reckoning time by seasons—Similar reckoning in the Avesta --100 autumnal forts of Vritra and the killing of the watery demon with ice explained —The seven rivers- released by Indra —Cannot be terrestrial, nor the rivers of the Panjaub —The interpretation of Western scholars ex- amined and rejected —The connection between the seven- rivers and the seven suns pointed out--The origin of the phrase Hapta-hindu in the Aveṣta --Probably a transference- of an old mythological name to a place in the new home-- Vritra's legend Arctic in origin--Captive waters represent the yearly struggle between light and the darkness in the ancient Arctic home. WE have now examined most of the Vedic passages, which directly show that the Polar or the Circum-Polar characteristics, determined in the third chapter, were known, by tradition, to the Vedic bards. We started with the tradition about the night of the gods, or a day and a night of six months each, and found that it could be traced back to the Indo-Iranian, if not to the Indo-Germanic, period. A close examination of the dawn-hymns in the Ṛig-Veda next disclosed the fact that Uṣhas, or the deity presiding over the dawn, is often addressed in the plural num- ber in the Vedic hymns, and that this could be accounted for only on the supposition that the Vedic dawns were a closely connected band of many dawns, —a supposition, which was found to be fully borne out by express passages in the Vedic literature, stating, in unambiguous terms, that the Vedic dawns were 30 in number, and that in ancient times a period of several days elapsed between the first appearance of light on the horizon and the rising of the sun. We have also found that the dawn is expressly described in the