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

258 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. place all the waters in the upper heaven. But I do not think that Wallis has correctly interpreted the passages quoted by Prof. Zimmer in support of his theory that a rajas (region) exists below the earth; and we cannot, therefore, accept Wallis' conclusions, which are evidently based upon prepossessions derived most probably from the Homeric controversy. Prof. Zimmer refers to three passages (VI, 9, 1 ; VII, 80, 1; V, 81, 4) to prove that a rajas beneath the earth was known to the Vedic people. The first of these passages is the well-known verse regarding the bright and the dark day. It says, " the bright day and the dark day, both roll the two rajas by the well-known paths." Here the two rajas are evidently the upper and the lower celestial hemisphere ; but Wallis asks us to compare this verse with I, 185, 1, where day and night are said "to revolve like two wheels," that is, to circle round from east to west, the one rising as the other goes down, and observes that " we are in no way obliged to consider that the progress of either is continued below the earth." I am unable to understand how we can draw such an inference from these passages. In VI, 9, 1, quoted by Zimmer, two rajas or atmospheres are mentioned, and the bright and the dark day are said to roll along both these rajas or regions. But if we hold with Wallis that the progress of either begins in the east and stops in the west, without going below the earth, the whole movement becomes confined to one rajas or region and does not extend over the two. Zimmer's interpretation is, there- fore, not only more probable, but the only one that explains the use of rajasî (in the dual), or the two regions, in the verse. The next passage (VII, 80, 1) is also misunderstood by Wallis. It describes the dawn as "unrolling the two regions (rajasî), which border on each other (samante), revealing all things." Now the dawn always appears on the horizon and the two rajas, which it unrolls and which are said to border on each other, must meet on this horizon. They can, therefore, only represent