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

VEDIC MYTHS—THE CAPTIVE WATERS. 251 waters, which we see every day. But in spite of the efforts of the Nairuktas and Western scholars, the simultaneous winning of light and waters still remains unexplained. Macdonell (Ved. Myth. p. 61) referring to this difficulty observes, " There appears to be a confusion between the notion of the restoration of the sun after the darkness of the thunderstorm, and the re- covery of the sun from the darkness of the night at dawn. The latter trait in the Indra myth is most probably only an extension of the former." If this means anything, it is only a confession of the inability of Vedic scholars to explain the four simultaneous effects of Indra's conquest over Vṛitra by the storm theory; and, strange to say, they seem to attribute their failure, not to their own ignorance or inability, but to the alleged confusion of ideas on the part of the Vedic bards. These are not, however, the only points, in which the Storm theory fails to explain the legend of Indra and Vṛitra. It has been pointed out above that Vṛitra was killed in distant regions, in which ghastly darkness reigned, and which abound- ed in waters; while in X, 73, 7, Indra by killing Namuchi, alias Vṛitra, is said to have cleared the gates of the Deva- yâna path, evidently meaning that Vṛitra was killed at the gates of the path leading to the region of the gods. Even in the Avesta, the fight between Apaosha and Tishtrya is said to have taken place in the sea of Vouru-Kasha, and Tishtrya is described as moving along the path made by Mazda after his fight with Apaosha. Vṛitra's abode is similarly described as 'hidden' and 'enveloped by water' at the bottom of rajas (I, 52, 6). None of these conditions is satisfied by making the storm-cloud, the scene of the battle between Indra and Vṛitra; for a cloud cannot be said to be the ocean of waters, nor can it be described as lying in a distant (parâvat) region, or at the threshold of the Devayâna or the path of the gods. In the Ṛig-Veda parâvat is usually contrasted with arâvat, and it means a distant region on the other side, as contrasted