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

VEDIC MYTHS—THE CAPTIVE WATERS. 243 helped Indra in the battle, it was easily explained by the Storm theory, because a thunderstorm or rain was always accompanied by stormy weather. But a more difficult point in the legend, which required explanation, was the hemming in or the captiva- ting of the waters by Vṛitra or Ahi. In the case of waters in the clouds it was easy to imagine that they were kept captive in the cloud by the demon of drought. But the Ṛig-Veda often speaks of sindhus or streams being released by the slaughter of Vṛitra; and if the streams or rivers really represented, as conceived by the advocates of this theory, the rivers of the Panjaub, it was rather difficult to understand how they could be described as be- ing hemmed in or kept captive by Vṛitra. But the ingenuity of Vedic scholars was quite eqral to the occasion, and it was sug- gested that, as the rivers in India often entirely dried up in sum- mer, the god of the rainy season, who called them back to life, could be rightly described as releasing them from the grasp of Vṛitra. The Indian Nairuktas do not appear to have extended the theory any further. But in the hands of German mytholo- gians the Storm theory became almost a rival to the Dawn theory; and stories, like that of Saraṇyu, have been explained by them as referring to the movements of dark storm-clouds hovering in the sky. "Clouds, storms, rains, lightning and thunder," observes Prof. Kuhn, "were the spectacles that above all others impressed the imagination of the early Aryans and busied it most in finding terrestrial objects to compare with their ever-varying aspects. The beholders were at home on the earth, and the things on the earth were comparitively familiar to them; even the coming and going of the celestial luminaries might often be regarded by them with more com- posure, because of their regularity; but they could never sur- cease to feel the liveliest interest in those wonderful meteoric changes, so lawless and mysterious in their visitations, which wrought such immediate and palpable effects for good or ill