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

262 , THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. 114, 2, there are three Nir-ṛitis mentioned, evidently corres- ponding to the three earths and three heavens; and in X, 161, 2, the lap of Nir-ṛiti is identified with the region of death. Purûravas is again said (X, 95, 14) to have gone to the distant region (param parāvatam) and there made his bed on the lap of Nir-ṛiti; while the Maruts are described as mounting up to the firmament from the bottom-less Nir-ṛiti in VII, 58, 1. All these passages taken together show that Nir-ṛiti, or the land of dis- solution and death, commenced in the west, that the sun lying in darkness travelled through the distant region (parāvat) and eventually rose in the east from the lap of Nir-ṛiti, and that the whole of this movement was placed not in the upper heaven, but on the other side of the vault through which the sun travel- led before he entered into Nir-ṛiti. ` In other words, the Nir-ṛitis extended below the earth from west to east; and since the region below the three earths is expressly mentioned in the Ṛig- Veda, the three Nir-ṛitis must be understood to mean the three regions below the earth corresponding to the three-fold division of the earth or of the heaven above it. Zimmer is, therefore, correct in stating that the sun moved through the rajas below the earth during night and that the Vedic poets knew of this nether rajas. There are other passages in the Ṛig-Veda which fully sup- port the same view. Thus corresponding to the rajasī, or the two rajas, we have another expression in the dual, namely, ubhau ardhau, which literally denotes 'the two halves,' and when applied to heaven, 'the two celestial hemispheres.' The expression ardhau occures in II, 27, 15, and the two halves are there asked to be propitious to the sacrificer. Wallis, however, interprets ubhau ardhau to mean 'heaven and earth.' But this is a mistake for there is a passage in the Ṛig-Veda where we have the phrases pare ardhe (in the farther half) and upare ardhe (in the nearer half) of heaven (divaḥ), showing that the heaven alone (and not heaven and