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

278 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. months and then growing old was about to die or reach the- ocean, to which the waters were speeding. In other words, this- means that the sun, who was borne on waters for ten months, was about to go into the lower watery regions as explained in the chapter VI. But to proceed with the subject in hand, the- idea of the cosmic circulation of aerial waters, is not confined to- the Indian, the Iranian or the Greek mythology. In the Egyp- tian mythology, Nu-t, the goddess of the sky, is sometimes "re- presented by a figure in which the band of stars is accompanied by a band of water"; and Sir Norman Lockyer tells us that "not only the Sun-gods, but the stars, were also supposed to travel in boats across the firmament from one horizon to the other." The- Jewish idea of the firmament in the midst of waters, the waters- above being afterwards separated from the waters below the- firmament, is already referred to above. There is, therefore, nothing strange or surprising if we find in the Vedas and in the- Avesta more or less clear references to the circulation of aerial waters through the upper and the lower celestial hemispheres of the universe. It is an idea which is found in the ancient mythology of every other nation, and nothing but false prejudice can deter- us from interpreting the simultaneous movements or the libera- tion of waters and light, described in the Vedic hymns, on the- theory of the cosmic circulation of aerial waters. But even after accepting the theory of the cosmic cir- culation of celestial waters and the simultaneous release of waters and dawn, it may be asked how the Arctic theory comes in, or is in any way required, to explain the Vṛitra- legend. We may admit that the waters imprisoned by Vṛitra, by shutting up the passages through the rocky walls that surround them, may be taken to mean the celestial waters in the world below the three earths; but still, the struggle between Indra and Vṛitra may, for aught we know, represent

• See Lockyer's Dawn of Astronomy, p. 35.