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

348 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. some of the Indra's enemies are described as Dashoṇi or Dasha- mâya, and that in the Dâsharâjña fight there were ten non-sacrifi- cing or demoniac kings opposed to Sudâs. These ten non-sacrifi- cing kings may well be conceived as a single king with ten heads and spoken of as a ten-headed monster, much in the same way as Bṛihaspati, the chief of the ten Aṅgirases, is said to be ten- headed or ten-mouthed. The fact that the brother of this ten-headed monster slept continuously for six months in a year also indicates his Arctic origin. Prof. Rhys, in his Hibbert Lectures, quotes Plutarch to the effect that the Paphlagonians regarded their gods as shut up in a prison during winter and let loose in summer, and interprets the legend as indicating the temporary ascendancy of the powers of darkness over those of light during the continuous night of the Arctic region. If we adopt this view, we can easily explain how all the gods were said to be thrown into prison by Râvaṇa until they were released by Râma. Another fact in the Râmâyaṇa which is supposed to require explanation is the conception of the monkey-god Hanû- mân. The Ṛig-Veda mentions a monkey (kapi), who, as Vṛishâ- kapi, has been elsewhere shown to represent the sun at the autumnal equinox, or according to the Arctic theory discussed in this book, at the time of going down below the horizon into the long darkness of the nether world. It is Dr. Pischel, who first threw out the hint that this Vṛishâkapi may probably be the ancestor of the Purâṇic Hanûmân; and the fact that Hanûmân was born at a time when the sun we said to be eclipsed goes to corroborate the view to a certain extent. Mr. Nârâyan Aiyangâr, in his Essays on Indo-Aryan mythology, further points out that Sîtâ, the wife of Râma, may be traced to the Ṛig-Vedic Sîtâ, meaning "a ploughed furrow" which is invoked to bestow wealth upon the worshipper in IV, 57, 6 and 7; and so far as the birth of Sîtâ from the earth and her final disappearance into it are concer- ned the explanation appears very probable. It seems, therefore,