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

366 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. Darmesteter. Spiegel. Haug and Bunsen. the river and winter, and Winter, which the a work of the Daêvas. Daêvas have created. 4. There are ten win- '9. Ten winter months 4. Ten months of ter months there, two are there, two summer winter are there, two summer months ;* and months, months of summer. those are cold for the 10. And these are [Seven months of sum- waters, cold for the cold as to the water, mer are there ; five earth,cold for the trees. cold as to the earth, months of winter there Winter falls there, with cold as to the trees. were ; * the latter are the worst of its plagues. 11. After this to the cold as to water, cold middle of the earth, as to earth, cold as *N.B.—Darmesteter then to the heart of the to trees; there (is)— states in a note that af- earth, midwinter, the heart of ter summer months the 12. Comes the win- winter; there all around Vendîdâd Sâdah adds, ter ; then comes the falls deep snow ; there is “ It is known that [in most evil. the direst of plagues.]† the ordinary course of nature] there are seven † N. B.—According months of summer and to Haug the whole of five of winter.” the passage within brac- kets is a later addition. It will be seen from the above translations that they all agree in the main points, viz., (1) that the Airyana Vaêjo was the first good land created by Ahura Mazda, (2) that severe winter and snow were first introduced into it by Angra Mainyu, and (3) that after the invasion of Angra Mainyu there were ten winter months and two summer months in that land. The only difference between the three versions is that while Darmesteter and Spiegel regard the last sentence “ And these are cold for the waters, etc,” as a part of the original text Haug regards it as a subsequent addition. All the translators again agree in holding that the statement “ Seven months of summer are there and five months of winter ” is a later inser- tion. But we shall take up this question afterwards. For the present we are concerned with the statement that “ Ten months of winter are there, two months of summer,” and it will be seen that there is no difference on this point in the