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

270 . THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. said to rise above the mountain in the east and set below the mountain in the west. The mountain on which Indra is said to have found Shambara (II, 12, 11), and the rock of Vala wherein the cows were said to have been imprisoned by the demon (IV, 3, 11 ; I, 71, 2) and which was burst open by Aṅgirases, also re- present the same mountainous range, which separated the upper from the lower celestial hemisphere, or the bright from the dark ocean. This explanation of the Vṛitra legend may sound strange to many scholars, but it should be borne in mind that the co-relation between the flow of water and the rising of the dawn and the sun, here described, is not speculative. If the Vedic works do not express it in unambiguous terms, the defi- ciency is fully made up by the Parsi scriptures. Thus in Khor- shed Yasht (VI, 2 and 3,) we are told that "When the sun rises up, then the earth becomes clean, the running waters become clean. ... ... ...Should the sun not rise up, then the Daevas would destroy all the things that are in the seven Karshvares." The passages in the Farvardîn Yasht are still more explicit. This Yasht is devoted to the praise of the Fravashis, which corres- pond to the Pitṛis of the Ṛig-Veda. These ancient fathers are often described, even in the Ṛig-Veda, as taking part, along with the gods, in the production of the cosmical phenomena. Thus the Pitṛis are said to have adorned the sky with stars, and placed darkness in the night and light in the day (X, 68, 11), or to have found the hidden light and generated the dawn (VII, 76, 4 ; X, 107, 1). The Fravashis in the Parsi scriptures are said to have achieved the same or similar exploits. They are described (Yt. XIII, 53 and 54) as having "shown the beautiful paths to the waters, which had stood before for a long time in the same place, without flowing"; and the waters are then said to have commenced to flow "along the path made by Mazda, along the way made by the gods, the watery way appointed to them." Immediately after (Yt. XIII, 57), the Fravashis are said to