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

VEDIC MYTHS—THE CAPTIVE WATERS. 257 have not yet been able to connect the release of the waters with the recovery of the dawn in the Vṛitra legend. It seems to have been supposed that when the Ṛig-Veda speaks of the celestial waters (divyâḥ âpaḥ) only the rain-waters are intended. But this is a mistake ; for, in passages which speak of the crea- tion of the world ( X, 82, 6 ; 129, 3 ), the world is said to have once consisted of nothing but undifferentiated waters. In short, the Ṛig-Veda, like the Hebrew Testament, expressly states that the world was originally full of waters, and that there were the waters in the firmament above and waters below. The Shata- patha Brâhmaṇa (XI, 1, 6, 1), the Aitareya Upaniṣhad (I, 1,) and Manu (I, 9), all say that the world was created from watery vapours. There can, therefore, be no doubt that the idea of celestial waters was well-known to the ancestors of the Vedic bards in early days ; and as the celestial waters were conceived to be the material out of which the universe was created, it is probable that the Vedic bards understood by that phrase what the modern scientists now understand by ' ether ' or ' the nebulous mass of matter ' that fills all the space in the universe. We need not, however, go so far. It is enough for our purpose to know that the celestial waters (divyâḥ âpaḥ), or the watery vapours (purîsham), are mentioned in the Ṛig- Veda, and that the Vedic bards considered the space or the region above, below, and around them to be full of these celestial vapours which are said to be co-eval with the world in X, 30, 10. It is, however, alleged by Wallis in his Cosmology of the Ṛig-Veda (p. 115) that the Vedic bards were not acquainted with the regions below the earth, and that every thing, which is described in the Vedas as occurring in the atmosphere, in- cluding the movements of the sun during night and day, must be placed in the regions of the sky, which were over the head of these bards. This view appears to be adopted by Macdonell in his Vedic Mythology; and if it be correct, we shall have to 17