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

322 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. (dwelling in darkness) on any other theory; and if this explanation is accepted, it is not difficult to understand how the solar orb could be said to be utilized by Indra in vanquishing the demons and regaining the morning light. In other words, Indra helps the sun in destroying the obs- truction which marred or clouded his lustre, and when this obstruction is removed the sun regains his light and rises up from the nether ocean. Indra is, therefore, correctly described in IV, 17, 14, as having stopped the wheel öf the sun, and, turning it round, flung it into the concealing darkness at the bottom of rajas or in the nether world of darkness. But the passage important for our purpose is VI, 31, 3. It reads as follows:— Tvam Kutsena abhi Shuṣhṇam Indra Ashuṣhaṁ yudhya Kuyavam gaviṣhṭau । Daśha prapitve adha Sūryasya mushāyas chakram avive rapāṁsi ॥ The first half of the verse presents no difficulty. It means "O Indra! in the striving for the cows, do you, with Kutsa, fight against Shuṣhṇa, the Ashuṣha and the Kuyava."* Here Ashuṣha and Kuyava are used as adjectives to Shuṣhṇa and mean 'the voracious Shuṣhṇa, the bane of the crops." The second hemistich, however, is not so simple. The last phrase avive-rapāṁsi is split in the Pada text as aviveḥ and rapāṁsi, which means "destroy calamities or mischiefs (rapāṁsi)." But Prof. Oldenberg proposes to divide the phrase as aviveḥ and apāṁsi, in confirmity with IV, 19, 10, and translates, "Thou hast manifested thy manly works (apāṁsi)."† It is not, however, necessary for our present purpose to examine the re- lative merits of these two interpretations; and we may, there- fore, adopt the older of the two, which translates the phrase as meaning, "Thou hast destroyed calamities or mischiefs,

• See Ṛig. VI, 31, 3,—त्वं कुत्सेनाभि शुष्णमिंद्राशुषं युध्य कुयवं गविष्टौ । दश प्रपित्वे अध सूर्यस्य मुषायश्चक्रमविवेरपांसि ॥ † See Oldenberg's Vedic Hymns, S.B.E. Series, Vol. XLVI, p. 69.