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

78 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. The same traditions are also found in the literature of many other branches of the Aryan race, besides the Hindus and the Parsis. For instance, Dr. Warren quotes Greek traditions similar to those we have discussed above. Regarding the primi- tive revolution of the sky, Anaximenes, we are told, likened the motions of the heaven in early days to "the rotating of a man's hat on his head".* Another Greek writer is quoted to show that "at first the Pole-star always appeared in the zenith." It is also stated, on the authority of Anton Krichenbauer, that in the Iliad and Odyssey two kinds of days are continually referred to, one of a year's duration, especially when describing the life and exploits of the Gods, and the other of twenty-four hours. The night of the Gods has its parallel also in the Norse my- thology, which mentions "the Twilight of the Gods," denoting by that phrase the time when the reign of Odin and the Æsir, or Gods, would come to an end, not forever, but to be again revived; for we are told that "from the dead sun springs a daughter more beautiful than her sire, and mankind starts afresh from the Life-raiser and his bride Life."† If these traditions and statements are correct, they show that the idea of half- yearly night and day of the Gods is not only Indo-Iranian, but Indo-Germanic, and that it must, therefore, have originated in the original home of the Aryans. Comparative mythology, it will be shown in a subsequent chapter, fully supports the view of an original Arctic home of the Aryan races, and there is no- thing surprising if the traditions about a day and a night of six months are found not only in the Vedic and the Iranian, but also in the Greek and the Norse literature. It seems to have been an

• See Paradise Found, 10th Ed., pp. 192 and 200. † See Cox's Mythology of the Aryan Nations, p. 41, quoting Brown's Religion and Mythology of the Aryans of the North of Europe, Arts. 15-17.

THE NIGHT OF THE GODS. 79 idea traditionally inherited by all the branches of the Aryan race, and, as it is distinctly Polar in character, it is alone enough to establish the existence of an Arctic home. But fortunately for us our edifice need not be erected on this solitary pillar, as there is ample evidence in the Vedic liter- ature which supports the Arctic theory by satisfying almost all the Polar and Circum-Polar tests laid down in the last chapter. The long revolving dawn is another peculiar characteristic of the North Pole, and we shall see in the next chapter that the Ṛig-Vedic account of the dawn is intelligible only if we take it as referring to the Polar dawn.

CHAPTER V. THE VEDIC DAWNS. Dawn-hymns the most beautiful in the Rig-Veda—The Deity fully described, unobscured by personification—First hints about the long duration of dawn—Recitation of a thousand verses, , or even the whole Rig-Veda, while the dawn lasts—Three or five-fold division of the dawn—Both imply a long dawn—The same inferred from the two words Ushas and Vyushti—Three Rig-Vedic passages about long dawns, hitherto misunderstood, discussed—Long interval of several days between the first appearance of light and sunrise—Expressly mentioned in the Rig-Veda, VII, 76, 3—Sâyana's explanation artificial and unsatisfactory—Existence of many dawns before sunrise— Reason why dawn is addressed in the plural in the Rig-Veda —The plural address not honorific—Nor denotes dawns of consecutive days—Proves a team of continuous dawns—The last view confirmed by the Taittirîya Samhitâ, IV, 3, 11 — Dawns as 30 sisters—Direct authority from the Taittrîya Brâh- mana for holding that they were continuous or unseparated— Sâyana's explanation of 30 dawns examined—Thirty dawns described as thirty steps of a single dawn—Rotatory motion of the dawn, like a wheel, directly mentioned in the Rig-Veda —Their reaching the same appointed place day by day—All indicate a team of thirty closely-gathered dawns—Results summed up—Establish the Polar character of the Vedic dawns—Possible variation in the duration of the Vedic dawn —The legend of Indra shattering the Dawn's car explained— Direct passages showing that the dawns so described were the events of a former age—The Vedic Dawns Polar in character. The Ṛig-Veda, we have seen, does not contain distinct references to a day and a night of six months' duration, though the deficiency is more than made up by parallel passages from the Iranian scriptures. But in the case of the dawn, the long continuous dawn with its revolving splendours, which is the special characteristic of the North

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 81 Pole, there is fortunately no such difficulty. Uṣhas, or the God- dess of Dawn, is an important and favourite Vedic deity, and is celebrated in about twenty hymns of the Ṛig-Veda, and mention- ed more than three hundred times, sometimes in the singular and sometimes in the plural. These hymns, according to Muir, are amongst the most beautiful,—if not the most beautiful,—in the entire collection; and the deity, to which they are addressed, is considered by Macdonell to be the most graceful creation of Vedic poetry, there being no more charming figure in the descrip- tive religious lyrics of any other literature*. In short, Uṣhas, or the Goddess of Dawn, is described in the Ṛig-Veda hymns with more than usual fulness, and what is still more important for our purpose is that the physical character of the deity is not, in the least, obscured by the description or the personification in the hymns. Here, therefore, we have a fine opportunity of prov- ing the validity of our theory, by showing, if possible, that the oldest description of the dawn is really Polar in character. A priori it does not look probable that the Vedic poets could have gone into such raptures over the short-lived dawn of the tropical or the temperate zone, or that so much anxiety about the coming dawn should have been evinced, simply because the Vedic bards had no electric light or candles to use during the short night of less than 24 hours. But the dawn-hymns have not, as yet, been examined from this stand-point. It seems to have been tacitly assumed by all interpreters of the Vedas, Eastern and Western, that the Uṣhas of the Ṛig-Veda can be no other than the dawn with which we are familiar in the tropical or the tem- perate zone. That Yâska and Sâyaṇa thought so is natural enough, but even the Western scholars have taken the same view, probably

• See Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts, Vol. V. p. 181; and Mac- donell's Vedic Mythology, p. 46. 11

82 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. under the influence of the theory that the plateau of Central Asia was the original home of the Aryan race. Therefore several expressions in the dawn-hymns, which would have otherwise suggested the inquiry regarding the physical or the astronomical character of the Vedic dawn, have been either ignored, or some- how explained away, by scholars, who could certainly have thrown more light on the subject, had they not been under the influence of the assumption mentioned above. It is with passages like these that we are here chiefly concerned, and we shall pre- sently see that if these are interpreted in a natural way, they fully establish the Polar nature of the Vedic dawn. The first hint, regarding the long duration of the Vedic dawn, is obtained from the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa, IV, 7. Before commencing the Gavâm-ayana sacrifice, there is a long recita- tion of not less than a thousand verses, to be recited by the Hotṛi priest. This Ashvina-shastra, as it is called, is addressed to Agni, Uṣhas and Ashvins, which deities rule at the end of the night and the commencement of the day. It is the longest recitation to be recited by the Hotṛi, and the time for reciting it is after midnight, when "the darkness of the night is about to be re- lieved by the light of the dawn," (Nir. XII, 1; Ashv. Shr. Sûtra, VI, 5, 8).* The same period of time is referred to also in the Ṛig-Veda, VII, 67, 2 and 3. The shastra is so long, that the Hotṛi, who has to recite it, is directed to refresh himself by drinking beforehand melted butter after sacrificing thrice a little of it, (Ait. Bṛ. IV, 7; Ashv. Shr. Sûtra, VI, 5, 3). "He ought to eat ghee," observes the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa, "before he commences repeat- ing. Just as in this world a cart or a carriage goes well if smeared (with oil),† thus his repeating proceeds well if he be

• Nir. XII, 1,—तयोः काल ऊर्ध्वमर्धरात्रात्प्रकाशीभावस्यानुविष्टंभम् । † See Haug's Translation of Ait. Br., p. 270.

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 83 smeared with ghee (by eating it)." It is evident that if such a recitation has to be finished before the rising of the sun, either the Hotṛi must commence his task soon after midnight when it is dark, or the duration of the dawn must then have been sufficiently long to enable the priest to finish the recitation in time, after commencing to recite it on the first appearance of light on the horizon as directed. The first supposition is out of the question, as it is expressly laid down that the shastra is not to be recited until the darkness of the night is relieved by light. So between the first appearance of light and the rise of the sun, there must have been, in those days, time enough to recite the long laudatory song of not less than a thousand verses. Nay, in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ ( II, 1, 10, 3) we are told that sometimes the recitation of the shastra, though commenced at the proper time, ended long before sunrise, and in that case, the Saṁhitâ requires that a certain animal sacrifice should be performed. Ashvalâyana directs that in such a case the recitation should be continued up to sunrise by reciting other hymns (Ashv. S. S. VI, 5, 8); while Âpastamba, (S. S. XIV, 1 and 2), after mention- ing the sacrifice referred to in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, adds that all the ten Mandalas of the Ṛig-Veda may be recited, if neces- sary, in such a case.* It is evident from this that the actual rising of the sun above the horizon was a phenomenon often de- layed beyond expectation, in those days; and in several places in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, (II, 1, 2, 4 ),† we are told that

• The Sûtras referred to are as follows:—Ashv. S. S. VI, 5, 8, प्रातरनुवाकन्वायेन तस्यैव समाम्नायस्य सहस्रावममोदेतेः शंसेत्। Âpastamba XIV, 1 & 2—यस्याश्विने शस्यमाने सूर्यो नाविर्भवति सौर्यं बहुरूपमाल- भेत ॥ १ ॥ सर्वा अपि दाशतयीरनुब्रूयात् ॥ २ ॥ The first of these two Sûtras is the reproduction of T. S. II, 1, 10, 3. † T. S. II, 1, 2, 4,—असावादित्यो न व्यरोचत तस्मै देवाः प्रायश्चित्ति- मैच्छन् । Cf. also T. S. II, 1, 4, 1.

84 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. the Devas had to perform a prāyaschitta because the sun did not shine as expected. Another indication of the long duration of the dawn is furnished by the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, VII, 2, 20.* Seven oblations are here mentioned, one to Uṣhas, one to Vyuṣhṭi, one to Udeshyat, one to Udyat, one to Udita, one to Suvarga and one to Loka. Five of these are evidently intended for the dawn in its five forms. The Tatittirîya Brâhmaṇa (III, 8, 16, 4) explains the first two, viz., to Uṣhas and Vyuṣhṭi, as referring to dawn and sunrise, or rather to night and day, for according to the Brâhmaṇa, “Uṣhas is night, and Vyuṣhṭi is day.”† But even though we may accept this as correct, and take Uṣhas and Vyuṣhṭi to be the representatives of night and day, because the former signalises the end of the night and the latter the beginning of the day, still we have to account for three oblations, viz., one to the dawn about to rise (Udeshyat), one to the rising dawn (Udyat), and one to the dawn that has risen (Uditâ), the first two of which are, according to the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, to be offered before the rising of the sun. Now the dawn in the tropical zone is so short that the three-fold distinction between the dawn that is about to rise, the dawn that is rising, and one that has risen or that is full-blown (vi-uṣhṭi), is a distinction without a difference. We must, there- fore, hold that the dawn, which admitted such manifold division for the practical purpose of sacrifice, was a long dawn.

• T. S. VII, 2, 20,—उषसे स्वाहा व्युष्ट्यै स्वाहोदेष्यते स्वाहोद्यते स्वाहोदिताय स्वाहा सुवर्गाय स्वाहा लोकाय स्वाहा । † Tait. Br. III, 8, 16, 4, explains the above passage as follows:— उषसे स्वाहा व्युष्ट्यै स्वाहेत्याह । रात्रिर्वा उषाः । अहर्व्युष्टिः । अहोरात्रे एवाव- रुन्धे । अथो अहोरात्रयोरेव प्रतितिष्ठति । ता यदुभयीँर्दिवा वा नक्तं वा जुहुयात् अहोरात्रे मोहयेत् । उषसे स्वाहा व्युष्ट्यै स्वाहोदेष्यते स्वाहोद्यते स्वाहेत्यनुदिते जुहोति । उदिताय स्वाहा सुवर्गाय स्वाहा लोकाय स्वाहेत्युदिते जुहोति ।

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 85 The three-fold division of the dawn does not seem to be unknown to the poets of the Ṛig-Veda. For, in VIII, 41, 3, Varuṇa's "dear ones are said to have prospered the three dawns for him,"* and by the phrase tisraḥ dānuchitrāḥ in I, 174, 7, 'three dew-lighted' dawns appear to be referred to. There are other passages in the Ṛig-Veda† where the dawn is asked not to delay, or tarry long, lest it might be scorched like a thief by the sun ( V, 79, 9 ); and in II, 15, 6, the steeds of the dawn are said to be 'slow' (ajavasaḥ), showing that the people were sometimes tired to see the dawn lingering long on the horizon. But a still more remarkable statement is found in I, 113, 13, where the poet distinctly asserts,‡ "the Goddess Uṣhas dawned continually or perpetually (shasvat) in former days (purā);" and the adjective shashvat-tamā ( the most lasting ) is applied to the dawn in I, 118, 11. Again the very existence and use of two such words as uṣhas and vi-uṣhṭi is, by itself, a proof of the long duration of the dawn; for, if the dawn was brief, there was no practical necessity of speaking of the full-blown state (vi+uṣhṭi) of the dawn as has been done several times in the Ṛig-Veda. The expression, uṣhasaḥ vi-uṣhṭau, occurs very often in the Ṛig-Veda, and it has been translated by the phrase, " on the flashing forth of the dawn." But no one seems to have raised the question why two separate words, one of which is derived from the other simply by prefixing the preposition vi, should be used in this connection. Words are made to denote ideas, and if uṣhas and vi-uṣhṭi were not required to denote two distinct phenomena, no one, especially

• Ṛig. VIII, 41, 3,—स क्षपः परि षस्वजे...तस्य वेनीरनु व्रतमुष- स्तिस्रो अवर्धयन् । † Ṛig. V, 79, 9,—व्युच्छा दुहितर्दिवो मा चिरं तनुथा अपः । नेत्त्वा स्तेनं यथा रिपुं तपाति सूरो अर्चिषा । ‡ Ṛig. I, 113, 13,—शश्वत्पुरोषा व्युवास देवी ।

86 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. in those early days, would have cared to use a phrase, which, for all ordinary purposes, was superfluously cumbrous. But these facts, howsoever suggestive, may not be regarded as conclusive, and we shall, therefore, now turn to the more ex- plicit passages in the hymns regarding the duration of the Vedic dawn. The first verse I would quote in this connection is Ṛig-Veda I, 113, 10:— Kiyâti â yat samayâ bhavâti yâ vyûṣhur yâsh cha nûnaṁ vyuchhân । Anu pûrvâḥ kṛipate vâvashânâ pradîdhyânâ joṣham anyâbhir eti ॥ The first quarter of the verse is rather difficult. The words are kiyâti â yat samayâ bhavâti, and Sâyaṇa, whom Wilson follows, understands samayâ to mean 'near'. Prof. Max Muller translates samayâ (Gr. Omos, Lat. Simul,) by 'together', 'at once'; while Roth, Grassmann and Aufrecht take samayâ bhavâti as one ex- pression meaning 'that which intervenes between the two.'† This has given rise to three different translations of the verse:— WILSON, (following Sâyaṇa):--For how long a period is it that the dawns have arisen? For how long a period will they rise? Still desirous to bring us light, Uṣhas pursues the functions of those that have gone before, and, shining brightly, proceeds with the others (that are to follow). GRIFFITH, (following Max Muller):--How long a time, and they shall be together,—Dawns that have shone and Dawns to shine hereafter? She yearns for former Dawns with eager longing, and goes forth gladly shining with the others.

• Ṛig. I, 113, 10—कियात्या यत्समया भवाति या व्यूषुर्याश्च नूनं व्युच्छान् । अनु पूर्वाः कृपते वावशाना प्रदीध्याना जोषमन्याभिरेति ॥ † See Petersberg Lexicon, and Grassmann's Worterbuch, s. v. Samayâ; and Muir's O. S. Texts, Vol. V., p. 189.

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 87 MUIR, (following Aufrecht) :—How great is the interval that lies between the Dawns which have arisen, and those which are yet to rise ? Uṣhas yearns longingly after the former Dawns, and gladly goes on shining with the others (that are to come). But in spite of these different renderings, the meaning of the verse, so far as the question before us is concerned, can be easily gathered. There are two sets of dawns, one of those that have past, and the other of those that are yet to shine. If we adopt Wilson's and Griffith's translations, the meaning is that these two classes of dawns, taken together, occupy such a long period of time as to raise the question,—How long they will be together? In other words, the two classes of dawns, taken together, were of such a long duration that men began to question as to when they would terminate, or pass away. If, on the other hand, we adopt Aufrecht's translation, a long period appears to have interve- ned between the past and the coming dawns ; or, in other words, there was a long break or hiatus in the regular sequence of these dawns. In the first case, the description is only possible if we suppose that the duration of the dawns was very long, much longer than what we see in the temperate or the tropical zone; while in the second, a long interval between the past and the present dawns must be taken to refer to a long pause, or night, occurring immediately before the second set of dawns com- menced their new course,—a phenomenon which is possible only in the Arctic regions. Thus whichever interpretation we adopt—a long dawn, or a long night between the two sets of dawns,—the description is intelligible, only if we take it to refer to the Polar conditions previously mentioned. The Vedic passages, discussed hereafter, seem, however, to support Sâyaṇa's or Max Muller's view. A number of dawns is spoken

88 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. of, some past and some yet to come; and the two groups are said to occupy a very long interval. That seems to be the real meaning of the verse. But without laying much stress on any particular meaning for the present, it is enough for our purpose to show that, even adopting Aufrecht's rendering, we cannot escape from the necessity of making the description refer to the Polar conditions. The verse in question is the tenth in the hymn, and it may be noticed that in the 13th verse of the same hymn we are told that "in former days, perpetually (shashvat) did the Goddess Uṣhas shine," clearly indicating that the Dawn, in early days, lasted for a long time. The following verse is, however, still more explicit, and decisive on the point. The seventh Maṇḍala of the Ṛig-Veda contains a number of dawn-hymns. In one of these (VII, 76), the poet, after stating in the first two verses that the Dawns have raised their banner on the horizon with their usual splendour, expressly tells us, (verse 3), that a period of several days elapsed between the first appearance of the dawn on the horizon and the actual rising of the sun that followed it. As the verse* is very important for our purpose, I give below the Pada text with an interlineal word for word translation:— Tâni it ahâni bahulâni âsan Those verily days many were yâ prâchînam ud-itâ sûryasya । which aforetime on the uprising of the sun Yataḥ pari jâre-iva â-charantî from which after towards a lover, like moving on Ushaḥ dadṛikshe na punaḥ yatî-iva ॥ O Dawn! wast seen not again forsaking (woman), like I have followed Sâyaṇa in splitting jâra-iva of Saṁhitâ text into jâre+iva, and not jâraḥ+iva as Shâkala —* Ṛig. VII, 76, 3,—तानीदहानि बहुलान्यसन् य्रा प्राचीनमुदिता सू- र्यस्य । यतः परि जार इवाचरत्युषो ददृक्षे न पुनर्यतीव ॥

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 89 has done in the Pada text ; for jāre+iva makes the simile more appropriate than if we were to compare uṣhas with jāraḥ. Liter- ally rendered the verse, therefore, means, "Verily, many were those days, which were aforetime at the uprising of the sun, and about which, O Dawn ! thou wast seen moving on, as towards a lover, and not like one (woman) who forsakes." I take pari with yataḥ, meaning that the dawn goes after the days. Yataḥ pari, thus construed, means 'after which,' or 'about which.' Sâyaṇa takes pari with dadṛikshe, and Griffith renders yataḥ by 'since.' But these constructions do not materi- ally alter the meaning of the second half of the verse, though taking pari with yataḥ enables us to take the second line as an adjectival clause, rendering the meaning more plain. In IV, 52, 1, the Dawn is said to shine after her sister (svasuḥ pari), and pari, with an ablative, does not necessarily denote 'from' in every case, but is used in various senses, as, for instance, in III, 5, 10, where the phrase Bhṛigubhyaḥ pari occurs, and is rendered by Grassmann as equivalent to 'for the sake of Bhṛi- gus,' while Sâyaṇa paraphrases pari by paritaḥ 'round about.' In the verse under consideration we can, therefore, take pari with yataḥ, and understand the expression as meaning 'after, about or around which (days).' It must also be borne in mind that there must be an expression to correspond with jāre in the simile, and this we get only if we construe yataḥ pari in the way proposed above. If we now analyse the verse it will be found to be made up of three clauses, one principal and two adjectival. The principal statement asserts that those days were many. The demonstrative 'those' (tāni) is then fol- lowed by two relative clauses, yā prāchīnam &c., and yataḥ pari &c. The first of these states that the days referred to in the principal clause were those that 'preceded the rising of the sun.' But if the days preceded the rising of the sun,

90 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. one might think that they were pervaded with darkness. The poet, therefore, further adds, in the second relative clause, that though these days were anterior to the rising of the sun, yet they were such that 'the Dawn was seen to move after or about them as after a lover, and not like a woman who for- sakes.' In short, the verse states in unmistakable terms (1) that many days (bahulâni ahâni) passed between the appearance of the first morning beams and sunrise, and (2) that these days were faithfully attended by the Dawn, meaning that the whole period was one of continuous Dawn which never vanished during the time. The words as they stand convey no other meaning but this, and we have now to see how far it is intelli- gible to us. To the commentators the verse is a perfect puzzle. Thus Sâyaṇa does not understand how the word 'days' (ahâni) can be applied to a period of time anterior to sunrise; for, says he, "The word day (ahaḥ) is used only to denote such a period of time as 'is invested with the light of the Dawn.'"* Then, again, he is obviously at a loss to understand how a number of days can be said to have elapsed between the first beams of the dawn and sunrise. These were serious difficulties for Sâyaṇa, and the only way to get over them was to force an unnatural sense upon the words, and make them yield some intelligible meaning. This was no difficult task for Sâyaṇa. The word ahâni, which means 'days,' was the only stumbling block in his way, and instead of taking it in the sense in which it is ordinarily used, without exception, everywhere in the Ṛig-Veda, he went back to its root-meaning, and interpreted it as equivalent to 'light' or 'splendour.' Ahan is derived from the root ah (or philologically dah), 'to burn,' or 'shine,' and Ahanâ meaning 'dawn' is derived from the same root.

• उषःप्रकाशयुक्तस्यैव कालस्याहःशब्दव्यवहारात ।

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 91 Etymologically ahâni may, therefore, mean splendours ; but the question is whether it is so used anywhere, and why we should here give up the ordinary meaning of the word. Sâyaṇa's answer is given above. It is because the word 'day' (ahan) can, according to him, be applied only to a period after sunrise and before sun- set. But this reasoning is not sound, because in the Ṛig-Veda VI, 9, 1, ahaḥ is applied to the dark as well as to the bright pe- riod of time, for the verse says, “there is a dark day (ahaḥ) and a bright day (ahaḥ).” This shows that the Vedic poets were in the habit of using the word ahaḥ (day) to denote a period of time devoid of the light of the sun.* Sâyaṇa knew this, and in his commentary on I, 185, 4, he expressly says that the word ahaḥ may include night. His real difficulty was different, viz., the impossibility of supposing that a period of several days could have elapsed between the first appearance of light and sunrise, and this difficulty seems to have been experienced even by Western scholars. Thus Prof. Ludwig materially adopts Sâyaṇa's view and interprets the verse to mean that the splendours of the dawn were numerous, and that they appear either before sunrise, or, if prâchînam be differently interpreted 'in the east' at the rising of the sun. Roth and Grass- mann seem to interpret prâchînam in the same way. Griffith translates ahâni by 'mornings' and prâchînam by 'aforetime.' His rendering of the verse runs thus:—“Great is, in truth, the number of the mornings, which were aforetime at the sun's uprising; since thou, O Dawn, hast been beheld repairing as to thy love, as one no more to leave him.” But Griffith does not explain * Ṛig. VI. 9, 1,—अहश्च कृष्णमहरर्जुनं च वि वर्तेते रजसी वेद्याभिः Also cf. T. S. III, 3, 4, 1,—एतद्वा अहो रूपं यद्रात्रिः । Similarly in T. S. VI, 3, 9, 1, the phrase शमहॊभ्याम् ( 1, 3, 9, 1 ) is thus explained:— शमहोभ्यामिति निनयत्यहोरात्राभ्यामेव ।

92 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. what he understands by the expression, “a number of mornings which were aforetime at the sun’s uprising.” The case , is, therefore, reduced to this. The word ahan, of which ahâni (days) is a plural form, can be ordinarily interpre- ted to mean (1) a period of time between sunrise and sunset; (2) a nycthemeron, as when we speak of 360 days of the year; or (3) a measure of time to mark a period of 24 hours, irrespective of the fact whether the sun is above or below the horizon, as when we speak of the long Arctic night of 30 days. Are we then to abandon all these meanings, and understand ahâni to mean ‘splen- dours’ in the verse under consideration? The only difficulty is to account for the interval of many, days between the appearance of the banner of the Dawn on the horizon and the emergence of the sun’s orb over it; and this difficulty vanishes if the description be taken to refer to the dawn in the Polar or Circum-Polar regions. That is the real key to the meaning of this and similar other passages, which will be noted hereafter; and in its absence a number of artificial devices have been made use of to make these passages somehow intelligible to us. But now nothing of the kind is necessary. As regards the word ‘days’ it has been observed that we often speak ‘a night of several days,’ or ‘a night of several months ’ when describing the Polar phenomena. In expressions like these the word ‘day’ or ‘month’ simply denotes a measure of time equivalent to ‘twenty-four hours,’ or ‘thirty days;’ and there is nothing unusual in the exclamation of the Ṛig-Vedic poet that “many were the days between the first beams of the dawn and actual sunrise.” We have, also seen that, at the Pole, it is quite possible to mark the periods of twenty-four hours by the rotations of the celestial sphere or the circum-polar stars, and these could be or rather must have been termed ‘days’ by the

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 93 inhabitants of the place. In the first chapter of the Old Testa- ment we were told that God created the heaven and the earth and also light "on the first day;" while the sun was created on the fourth "to divide the day from the night and to rule the day." Here the word 'day' is used to denote a period of time even before the sun was created; and a fortiori, there can be no impropriety in using it to denote a period of time before sun- rise. We need not, therefore, affect a hypercritical spirit in exa- mining the Vedic expression in question. If Sâyaṇa did it, it was because he did not know as much about the Polar regions as we now do. We have no such excuse, and must, therefore, accept the meaning which follows from the natural construction and reading of the sentence. It is therefore clear that the verse in question (VII, 76, 3) expressly describes a dawn continuously lasting for many days, which is possible only in the Arctic regions. I have discussed the passage at so much length because the history of its interpreta- tion clearly shows how certain passages in the Ṛig-Veda, which are unintelligible to us in spite of their simple diction, have been treated by commentators, who know not what to make of them if read in a natural way. But to proceed with the subject in hand, we have seen that the Polar dawn could be divided into periods of 24 hours owing to the circuits it makes round the horizon. In such a case we can very well speak of these divisions as so many day- long dawns of 24 hours each, and state that so many of them are past and so many are yet to come, as has been done in the verse (I, 113, 10) discussed above. We may also say that so many day-long dawns have passed, and yet the sun has not risen, as in II, 28, 9, a verse addressed to Varuṇa, wherein the poet asks for the following boon from the deity:—

94 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. Para ṛiṇâ sâvîr adha mat-kṛitâni mâ aham râjan anya-kṛitena bhojam । Avyushṭâ in nu bhûyasîr ushâsa â no jîvân Varuṇa tâsu shadhi ॥ Literally translated this means "Remove far the debts (sins) incurred by me. May I not, O King ! be affected by others' doings. Verily, many dawns (have) not fully (vi) flashed forth. O Varuṇa ! direct that we may be alive during them."* The first part of this verse contains a prayer usually addressed to Gods, and we have nothing to say with respect to it, so far as the subject in hand is concerned. The only expression necessary to be discussed is bhûyasîh ushâsaḥ avyushṭâḥ in the third quarter of the verse. The first two words present no difficulty. They mean 'many dawns.' Now avyushṭa is a negative participle from vyushṭa, which again is derived from ushṭa with vi prefixed. I have refer- red to the distinction between ushas and vyushṭi suggested by the three-fold or the five-fold division of the dawn. Vyushṭi, according to the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, means 'day,' or rather 'the flashing forth of the dawn into sunrise' ; and the word a+vi+ushṭa, therefore, means "not-fully-flashed-forth into sunrise." But Sâyaṇa and others do not seem to have kept in view this distinc- tion between the meanings of ushas and vyushṭi ; or if they did, they did not know or had not in their mind the phenomenon of the long continuous dawn in the Arctic regions, a dawn, that lasted for several day-long periods of time before the sun's orb appeared on the horizon. The expression, bhûyasîh ushâsaḥ avyushṭâḥ, which literally means "many dawns have not dawned, or fully flashed forth," was, therefore, a riddle to these com- mentators. Every dawn, they saw, was followed by sunrise; and

• Ṛig. II, 28, 9,—पर ऋणा सावीरध मत्कृतानि माहं राजन्नन्यकृतेन भोजम् । अव्युष्टा इन्नु भूयसीरुषास आ नो जीवान्वरुण तासु शाधि ॥

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 95 they could not, therefore, understand how ‘many dawns’ could be described as “not-fully-flashed-forth.” An explanation was thus felt to be a necessity, and this was obtained by converting, in sense, the past passive participle avyushṭa into a future participle; and the expression in question was translated as meaning, “during the dawns (or days) that have not yet dawned,” or, in other words, “ in days to come.” But the interpretation is on the face of it strained and artificial. If future days were intended, the idea could have been more easily and briefly expressed. The poet is evidently speaking of things present, and, taking vi-ushṭa to denote what it literally signifies, we can easily and naturally interpret the expression to mean that though many dawns, mean- ing many day-long portions of time during which the dawn last- ed, have passed, yet it is not vyushṭa, that is the sun's orb has not yet emerged from below the horizon, and that Varuṇa should protect the worshipper under the circumstances. There are many other expressions in the Ṛig-Veda which further strengthen the same view. Thus corresponding to bhūy- asīḥ in the above passage, we have the adjective pūrvīḥ (many) used in IV, 19, 8 and VI, 28, 1, to denote the number of the dawns, evidently shewing that numerically more than one dawn is intended. The dawns are again not unfrequently addressed in the plural number in the Ṛig-Veda, and the fact is well-known to all Vedic scholars. Thus in I, 92, which is a dawn-hymn, the bard opens his song with the characteristically emphatic exclamation, “these (etāḥ) are those (tyāḥ) dawns (ushasaḥ), which have made their appearance on the horizon,” and the same ex- pression again occurs in VII, 78, 3. Yâska explains the plural number ushasaḥ by considering it to be used only honori- fically (Nirukta XII, 7); while Sâyaṇa interprets it as re- ferring to the number of divinities that preside over the.

96 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. morn. The Western scholars have not made any improve- ment on these explanations; and Prof. Max Muller is simply content with observing that the Vedic bards, when speaking of the dawn, did sometimes use the plural just as we would use the singular number! But a little reflection will show that neither of these explanations is satisfactory. If the plural is honorific why is it changed into singular only a few lines after in the same hymn? Surely the poet does not mean to address the Dawn respectfully only at the outset, and then change his manner of address and assume a familiar tone. This is not, however, the only objection to Yâska's explanation. Various similes are used by the Vedic poets to describe the appearance of the Dawns on the horizon, and an examination of these similes will convince any one that the plural number, used in reference to the Dawn, cannot be merely honorific. Thus in the second line of I, 92, 1, the Dawns are compared to a number of 'warriors' (dhṛishṇavah), and in the third verse of the same hymn they are likened to 'women (nārīḥ) active in their occupations.' They are said to appear on the horizon like 'waves of waters' (apām na urmayha) in VI, 64, 1; or like 'pillars planted at a sacrifice' (adhvareshu svaravaḥ) in IV, 51, 2. We are again told that they work like 'men arrayed' (visho na yuktāḥ), or advance like 'troops of cattle' (gavām na sargāḥ), in VII, 79, 2, and IV, 51, 8, respectively. They are described as all 'alike' (sadṛiśhīḥ); and are said to be of 'one mind' (sañjānanāse), or 'acting harmoniously' in IV, 51, 6, and VII, 76, 5. In the last verse the poet again informs us that they 'do not strive against each other' (mithah na yatante), though they live jointly in the 'same enclosure' (samāne urve). Finally in X, 88, 18, the poet distinctly asks the question, "How many fires, how many suns and how many dawns (ushāsaḥ) are there?" If the Dawn were addressed in plural simply

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 97 out of respect for the deity, where was the necessity of informing us that they do not quarrel though collected in the same place ? The expresssions 'waves of waters', or 'men arrayed' &c., are again too definite to be explained away as honorific. Sâyaṇa seems to have perceived this difficulty, and has, probably for the same reason, proposed an explanation slightly different from that of Yâska But, unfortunately, Sâyaṇa's explanation does not solve the difficulty, as the question still remains, why the deities pre- siding over the dawn should be more than one in number. The only other explanation put forward, so far as I know, is that the plural number refers to the dawns on successive days during the year, as we perceive them in the temperate or the tropical zone. On this theory there would be 360 dawns in a year, each followed by the rising of the sun every day. This explanation may appear plausible at the first sight. But on a closer examination it will be found that the expressions used in the hymns cannot be made to reconcile with this theory. For, if 360 dawns, all separated by intervals of 24 hours, were intended by the plural number used in the Vedic verses, no poet, with any propriety, would speak of them as he does in I, 92, 1, by using the double pronoun etâḥ and tyâḥ, as if he was pointing out to a physical phenomenon before him; nor can we understand how 360 dawns, spread over the whole year, can be described as advancing like 'men arrayed' for battle. It is again absurd to describe the 360 dawns of the year as being collected in the 'same enclosure' and 'not striving against or quarrelling with each other.' We are thus forced to the conclusion that the Ṛig-Veda speaks of a team or a group of dawns, unbroken or uninterrupted by sunlight, so that if we be so minded, we can regard them as constituting a single long continuous dawn. This is in perfect accord with the statement discussed above, viz., 13