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

VEDIC MYTHS—THE MATUTINAL DEITIES. 309 supreme and one who lost it fell down. Thus "when Yima lost his Glory he perished and Azi Dahâka reigned; as when light disappears, the fiend rules supreme."* It may also be noticed that amongst the persons to whom the glory belonged in ancient days are mentioned the seven Amesha Spentas, all of one thought, one speech and one deed. We have thus a very close resemblance between the glory said to have been placed in a bowl with bottom up and guarded by the seven Ṛiṣhis in the Vedas, and the Hvarenô or the glory mentioned in the Avesta, which once belonged to the seven Amesha Spentas, and which thrice went away from Yima and had to be restored to him by fighting with Azi Dahâka, the Avestic representative of the Ahi Vṛitra, in the sea Vouru- Kasha; and this strengthens our view that the bowl with the bottom up and the mouth downwards is the inverted hemi- sphere of the nether world, the seat of darkness and the home of aerial waters. It was this region wherein Bhujyu was plunged and had to be saved by the intervention of the Ashvins. Now if Bhujyu was plunged in this bottomless darkness and ocean for three nights and three days (I, 116, 4), or Rebha was there for ten nights and nine days (I, 116, 24), it is clear that the period represents a continuous darkness of so many days and nights as stated above; and I think, the story of Ṛijrâshva, or the Red-horse, also refers to the same incident, viz., the continuous darkness of the Arctic region. Ṛijrâshva, that is, the Red-horse, is said to have slaughtered 100 or 101 sheep and gave them to the Vṛiki, or the she-wolf, and his own father being angry on that account is said to have deprived him of his sight. But the Ashvins at the prayer of the she-wolf restored to Ṛijrâshva his eye- sight and thus cured him of his blindness. Prof. Max Muller thinks that the sheep may here mean the stars, which may be said to have been slaughtered by the rising sun. But we have

• See S. B. E. Series, Vol. IV, Introd, p. lxiii.