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

VEDIC MYTHS—THE CAPTIVE WATERS. 281 directly opposed to the statement (X, 62, 2) that "Vala was killed at the end of the year (parivatsare)." Some scholars try to get out of the difficulty by suggesting that the passage may be taken as referring to a famine or drought that occurred after 40 years, or that it may represent a forty years' war between the Aryans protected by Indra, and Shambara, the chief of the aboriginal races dwelling on the mountains! But both these explanations are too far-fetched and imaginary to deserve any serious attention or refutation. The story of Shambara is men- tioned in a number of places in the Ṛig-Veda, and everywhere it represents Indra's conflict with Vṛitra.* It is, therefore, prepos- terous to hold that a forty years' war with the aboriginies. is referred to in this single passage, especially when the passage is capable of being interpreted differently without straining the words used. It is the most ordinary Sanskrit idiom to use the locative case in mentioning the month, the day, the season or the year, when a particular incident is said to have taken place. Thus, even now, we say, "Kârttike, shukla-pakshe, trayodashyâm," meaning "in the month of Kârttika, in the bright half, on the thirteenth (tithi or day)." The feminine ordinal numerals, like chaturthî, ekâ- dashî, trayodashî, are always used, without any noun, to de- note the tithi or the day of the month, or the fortnight, as the case may be. Thus in the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa (I, 1, 9, 10), we have the expression "yadi saṁvatsare na âdadhyât dvâ- dashyâm purastât âdadhyât," meaning that "if the sacrificial fire is not consecrated at the end of the year (saṁvatsare), it should be consecrated on the twelfth (dvâdashyâm) afterwards." Here dvâdashyâm is a feminine ordinal in the locative case used by itself, and means "on the twelfth tithi or day" after the end of the year mentioned in the preceding sentence.

• See the Nivids, quoted supra (p. 246). Shambara-hatya or the fight with Shambara, and go-ishṭi or the struggle for cows are declared to be the one and the same in these nivids