114 of the Vedic dawn is once demonstrated, it is, astronomically speaking, unnecessary to search for further evidence regarding the existence of long days and nights in the Ṛig-Veda. But as we are dealing with a state of things which existed several thousand years ago, and with evidence, which, though traditionally handed down, has not yet been interpreted in the way we have done, it is safer to treat, in practice, the aforesaid astronomical phenomena as disconnected facts, and separately collect evidence bearing on each, keeping the astronomical connection in reserve till we come to consider the cumulative effect of the whole evidence in support of the several facts mentioned above. I do not mean to imply that there is any uncertainty in the relation of sequence between the above astronomical facts. On the contrary, nothing can be more certain than such a sequence. But in collecting and examining the evidence bearing on facts like those under consideration, it is always advisable in practice to collect as much evidence and from as many different points of view as possible. In this and the following two chapters, we, therefore, propose to examine separately the evidence that can be found in the Vedic literature about the long day, the long night, the number of months of sunshine and of darkness, and the character of the year, and see if it discloses characteristics found only at, or around, the North Pole. And first regarding the long night, — a night of several days’ duration, such as makes the northern latitudes too cold or uncomfortable for human habitation at present, but which, in inter-glacial times, appeared to have caused no further inconvenience than what might result from darkness, long and continuous darkness for a number of days, though, by itself, it was not a desirable state of things, and the end of which must have been eagerly looked for by men who had to undergo such experience. There are many passages in the Ṛig-Veda that speak of long and ghastly darkness, in one form or another, which sheltered the enemies of Indra, and to destroy which Indra had to fight with the demons or the Dâsas, whose strongholds are all said to be concealed in this

115 darkness. Thus in 1, 32, 10, Vṛitra, the traditional enemy of Indra, is said to be engulfed in long darkness (dîrgham tamaḥ âshayad Indrashatruḥ), and in V, 32, 5, Indra is described as having placed Shuṣhṇa who was anxious to fight, in “the darkness, of the pit” (tamasi harmye), while the next verse speaks of asûrye tamasi (lit. sunless darkness), which Max Müller renders by “ghastly darkness.”* In spite of these passages the fight between Vṛitra and Indra is considered to be a daily and not a yearly struggle, a theory the validity of which will be examined when we come to the discussion of Vedic myths. For the present it is sufficient to note that the above expressions lose all their propriety, if the darkness, in which the various enemies of Indra are said to have flourished, be taken to be the ordinary darkness of twelve, or, at best, of twenty-four hours’ duration. It was, in reality, a long and a ghastly or sunless, darkness, which taxed all the powers of Indra and his associate Gods to overcome. But apart from this legendary struggle, there are other verses in the Ṛig-Veda which plainly indicate the existence of a night longer than the longest cis-Arctic night. In the first place the Vedic bards are seen frequently invoking their deities to release them from darkness. Thus in II, 27, 14, the poet says, “Aditi, Mitra and also Varuṇa forgive if we have committed any sin against you! May I obtain the wide fearless light, O Indra! May not the long darkness comeover us.” The expression in the original for “long darkness” is dîrghâḥ tamisrâḥ, and means rather an “uninterrupted succession of dark nights (tamisrâḥ)” than simply “long darkness.” But even adopting Max Müller’s rendering given above† the anxiety here manifested for the disappearance of the long darkness is unmeaning, if the darkness never lasted for more than twenty-four hours. In I, 46, 6, the Ashvins are asked “to vouchsafe such strength to the worshipper as may carry him * See S. B. E. series, Vol. XXXII, p. 218. † Hibbert Lectures, p. 231.

116 through darkness”; and in VII, 67 a the poet exclaims: “The fire has commenced to burn, the ends of darkness have been seen, and the banner of the Dawn has appeared in the cast!”* The expression “ends of darkness” (tamasaḥ antâḥ) is very peculiar, and it would be a violation of idiom to take this and other expressions indicating “long darkness” to mean nothing more than long winter nights, as we have them in the temperate or the tropical zone. As stated previously the longest winter night in these zones must be, at best, a little short of twenty-four hours, and even then these long nights prevail only for a fortnight or so. It is, therefore, very unlikely that Vedic bards perpetuated the memory of these long nights by making it a grievance of such importance as to require the aid of their deities to relieve them from it. There are other passages where the same longing for the end of darkness or for the appearance of light is expressed, and these cannot be accounted for on the theory that to the, old Vedic bards night was as death, since they had no means which a civilized person in the twentieth century possesses, of dispelling the darkness of night by artificial illumination. Even the modern savages are not reported to be in the habit of exhibiting such impatience for the morning light as we find in the utterances of the Vedic bards; and yet the latter were so much advanced in civilization as to know the use of metals and carriages. Again not only men, but Gods, are said to have lived in long darkness. Thus, in X, 124, I, Agni is told that he has stayed “too long in the long darkness,” the phrase used being jyog eva dîrgham tama âshayiṣhṭâh. This double phrase jyog (long) dîrgham is still more inappropriate, if the duration of darkness never exceeded that of the longest winter-night. In II, 2, 2, the same deity, Agni, is said to shine during “continuous nights,” which, according to Max Müller, is * Ṛig. I, 46, 6, — या नः पीपरदश्विना जयोतिष्मती तमस्तिरः । तामस्मे रासाथामिषम ॥ Ṛig. VII, 67, 2, — अशोच्यग्निः समिधानो अस्मे उपो अद्र्श्रन तमसश्चिदन्ताः । अचेति केतुरुषसः पुरस्ताच्छ्रिये दिवो दुहितुर्जायमानः ॥

117 the meaning of the word kṣhapaḥ in the original.* The translation is no doubt correct, but Prof. Max Müller does not explain to us what he means by the phrase “continuous nights.” Does it signify a succession of nights uninterrupted by sun-light? or, is it only an elegant rendering, meaning nothing more than a number of nights? The learned translator seems to have narrowly missed the true import of the phrase employed by him. But we need not depend on stray passages like the above to prove that the long night was known in early days. In the tenth Maṇḍala of the Ṛig-Veda we have a hymn (127) addressed to the Goddess of night and in the 6th verse of this hymn Night is ivoked to “become easily fordable” to the worshipper (nah sutarâ bhava). In the Parishiṣhṭa, which follows this hymn in the Ṛig-Veda and which is known as Râtri-sûkta or Durgâ-stava, the worshipper asks the Night to be favorable to him, exclaiming “May we reach the other side in safety! May we reach the: other side in safety!”† In the Atharva-Veda, XIX, 47, which is a reproduction, with some variations, of the above Parishiṣhṭa, the second verse runs thus. “Each moving thing finds rest in her (Night), whose yonder boundary is not seen, nor that which keeps her separate. O spacious, darksome night! May we, uninjured, reach the end of thee, reach, O thou blessed one, thine end!” And in the third verse of the 50th hymn of the same book the worshippers ask that they may pass uninjured in their body, “through each succeeding night, (râtrim râtrim).” Now a question is naturally raised why should every one be so anxious about safely reaching the other end of the night? And why should the poet exclaim that “its yonder boundary is nor seen, nor what keeps it * See S. B. E. Series, Vol. XLVI, p. 195. † The Atharva-Veda, XIX, 47, 2; Ibid, XIX, 50, 3.

118 separate?” Was it because it was an ordinary winter night, or, was it because it was the long Arctic night? Fortunately, the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ preserves for us the oldest traditional reply to these questions and we need not, therefore, depend upon the speculations of modern commentators. In the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ I, 5, 5, 4,* we have a similar Mantra or prayer addressed to Night in these words: — “O Chitrâvasu! let me safely reach thy end.. A little further (I, 5, 7, 5), the Saṁhitâ itself explains this Mantra, or prayer thus: — “Chitrâvasu is (means) the night; in old times (purâ), the Brâhmaṇs (priests) were afraid that it (night) would not dawn.” Here we have an express Vedic statement, that in old times, the priests or the people, felt apprehensions regarding the time when the night would end. What does it signify? If the night was not unusually long, where was the necessity for entertaining any misgivings about the coming dawn? Sâyaṇa, in commenting on the above passage, has again put forward his usual explanation, that nights in the winter were long and they made the priest apprehensive in regard to the coming dawn. But here we can quote Sâyaṇa against himself, and show that he has dealt with this important passage in an off hand manner. It is well-known that the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ often explains the Mantras, and this portion of the Saṁhitâ is called Brâmaṇa, the whole of the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ being made up in this way of Mantras and the Brâhmaṇa, or prayers and their explanations or commentary mixed up together. The statement regarding the apprehensions of the priests about the coming dawn, therefore, falls under the Brâhmaṇa portion of the Saṁhitâ. Now the contents of the Brâhmaṇas are usually classified by * Taitt Sam. 1, 5, 5, 4; Taitt, Sam. I, 5, 7, 5.

119 Indian divines under the ten following heads — (1) Hetu or reason; (2) Nirvachana, or etymological explanation; (3) Nindâ, or censure; (4) Prashaṁsâ, or praise; (5) Saṁshaya, or doubt; (6) Vidhi, or the rule; (7) Parakriyâ, or others’ doings; (8) Purâ-kalpa, or ancient rite or tradition; (9) Vyavadhârana-kalpanâ or determining the limitations; (10) Upamâna, an apt comparison or simile. Sâyaṇa in his introduction to the commentary on the Ṛig-Veda mentions the first nine of these, and as an illustration of the eighth, Purâ-kalpa, quotes the explanatory passage from the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, 1, 5, 7, 5, referred to above. According to Sâyaṇa the statement, “In former times the priests were afraid that it would not dawn,” therefore, comes under Purâ-kalpa, or ancient traditional history found in the Brâmaṇas. It is no Arthavâda, that is, speculation or explanation put forth by the Brâhmaṇa itself. This is evident from the word purâ which occurs in the Saṁhitâ text, and which shows that some piece of ancient traditional information is here recorded. Now if this view is correct; a question naturally arises why should ordinary long winter nights have caused such apprehensions in the minds of the priests only “in former times,” and why should the long darkness cease to inspire the same fears in the minds of the present generation. The long winter nights in the tropical and the temperate zone are as long to-day as they were thousands of years ago, and yet none of us, not even the most ignorant, feels any misgiving about the dawn which puts an end to the darkness of these long nights. It may, perhaps, be urged that in ancient times the bards had not acquired the knowledge necessary to predict the certain appearance of the dawn after a lapse of some hours in such cases. But the lameness of this excuse becomes at once evident when we see that the Vedic calendar was, at this time, so much advanced that even the question of the equation of the

120 solar and the lunar year was solved with sufficient accuracy Sâyaṇa’s explanation of winter nights causing misgivings about the coming dawn must, therefore, be rejected as unsatisfactory. It was not the long winter-night that the Vedic bards were afraid of in former ages. It was something else, something very long, so long that, though you knew it would not last permanently, yet, by its very length, it tired your patience and made you long for, eagerly long for, the coming dawn. In short, it was the long night of the Arctic region, and the word purâ shows that it was a story of former ages, which the Vedic bards knew by tradition, I have shown elsewhere that the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ must be assigned to the Kṛittikâ period. We may, therefore, safely conclude that at about 2500 B.C., there was a tradition current amongst the Vedic people to the effect that in former times, or rather in the former age, the priests grew so impatient of the length of the night, the yonder boundary of which was not known, that they fervently prayed to their deities to guide them safely to the other end of that tiresome darkness. This description of the night is inappropriate unless we take it to refer to the long and continuous Arctic night. Let us now see if the Ṛig-Veda contains any direct reference to the long day, the long night, or to the Circumpolar calendar, besides the expressions about long darkness or the difficulty of reaching the other boundary of the endless night noticed above. We have seen before that the Rig-Vedic calendar is a calendar of 360 days, with an intercalary month, which can neither be Polar nor Circumpolar. But side by side with it the Ṛig-Veda preserves the descriptions of days and nights, which are not applicable to the cis-Arctic days, unless we put an artificial construction upon the passages containing these descriptions. Day and night is spoken of as a couple in the Vedic literature, and is denoted by a compound word in the dual number. Thus we have Uṣhâsa-naktâ (I, 122, 2), Dawn and Night; Naktoṣhâsâ (I, 142, 7), Night and Dawn; or simply Uṣhâsau (I, 188, 6) the two Dawns; all meaning a couple of Day and Night. The word

121 Aho-ratre also means Day and Night; but it does not occur in the Ṛig-Veda, though Aitareya Brâhmaṇa (II, 4) treats it as synonymous with Uṣhâsâ-naktâ. Sometimes this pair of Day and Night is spoken of as two sisters or twins; but whatever the form in which they are addressed, the reference is usually unambiguous. Now one of the verses which describes this couple of Day and Night is III, 55, 11.* The deity of the verse is Aho-ratre, and it is admitted on all hands that it contains a description of Day and Night. It runs thus: — Nânâ chakrâte yamyâ vapûṁṣhi     tayor anyad rochate kṛiṣhṇam anyat | Shyâvî cha yad aruṣhî cha swasârau     mahad devânâm asuratvam ekam || The first three quarters or feet of this verse contain the principal statements, while the fourth is the refrain of the song or the hymn. Literally translated it means: — “The twin pair (females) make many forms; of the two one shines, the other (is) dark; two sisters (are) they, the dark (shyâvî), and the bright (aruṣhi). The great divinity of the Gods is one (unique).” The verse looks simple enough at the first sight, and simple it is, so far as the words are concerned. But it has been misunderstood in two important points. We shall take the first half of the verse first. It says “the twin pair make many forms; of the two one shines and the other is dark.” The twin pair are Day and Night, and one of them is bright and the other dark. So far, therefore, there is no difficulty. But the phrase “make many forms” does not seem to have been properly examined or interpreted. The words used in the original verse are nânâ chakrâte vapûṁṣhi, and they literally mean “make many bodies or forms.” We have thus a two-fold description of the couple; it is called the shining and the dark and also described as possessed of many forms. In I, 123, 7, the couple of Day and Night is said to be viṣhurûpe; while in other places the adjective: virûpe is used in the same * Ṛig. III, 55, 11, — नाना चक्राते यम्या वपूंषि तयोरन्यद रोचते कर्ष्णमन्यत । शयावी च यदरुषी च सवसारौ म... ॥

122 sense. It is evident, therefore, that the “bodies” or “forms” intended to be denoted by these words must be different from the two-fold character of the couple as shining and dark and if so, the phrases viṣhurûpe virûpe or nânâ vapûṁṣhi used in connection with the couple of Day and Night must be taken to mean something different from “bright and dark,” if these expressions are not to be considered as superfluous or tautological. Sâyaṇa interprets these phrases as referring to different colors (rûpa), like black, white, &c., and some of the Western scholars seem to have adopted this interpretation. But I cannot see the propriety of assigning different colors to Day and Night. Are we to suppose that we may have sometimes green- violet, yellow or blue days and nights? Again though the word rûpa lends itself to this construction, yet vapûṁṣhi cannot ordinarily be so understood. The question does not, however, seem to have attracted the serious attention of the commentators; so that even Griffith translates viṣhurûpe by “unlike in hue” in I, 123, 7. The Naktoṣhâsâ are described as virûpe also in I, 113, 3, but there too Sâyaṇa gives the same explanation. It does not appear to have occurred to any one that the point requires any further thought. Happily, in the case of Ṛig. I, 113, 3, we have, however, the advantage of consulting a commentator older than Sâyaṇa. The verse occurs in the Uttarârchika of Sâma-Veda, (19, 4, 2, 3), Mâdhava in his Vivaraṇa, a commentary on the Sâma-Veda explains virûpe thus: — “In the Dakṣhiṇâyana during the year there is the increase of night, and in the Uttarâyaṇa of day.”* Mâdhava’s Vivaraṇa is a scarce book, and I take the above quotation from an extract from his commentary given in a footnote to the Calcutta edition of the Sâma-Veda Saṁhitâ, with Sâyaṇa’s commentary, published by Satyavrata Sâmashramî, a learned Vedic scholar of Calcutta. It is *See Sâma-Veda, Cal. Ed. Utta. 19, 4, 2, 3.

123 not known who this Mâdhava is, but Pandit Satyavrata states. that he is referred to by Durga, the commentator of Yâska. We may, therefore, take Mâdhava to be an old commentator, and it is satisfactory to find that he indicates to us the way out of the difficulty of interpreting the phrases viṣhurûpe and virûpe occurring so many times in Ṛig-Veda, in connection with the couple of Day and Night. The word “form” (rûpa) or body (vapus) can be used to denote the extent, duration, or length of days and nights, and virûpe would naturally denote the varying lengths of days and nights, in addition to their color which can be only two-fold, dark or bright. Taking our clue from Mâdhava, we may, therefore, interpret the first half of the verse as meaning “The twin pair assume various (nânâ) lengths (vapûṁṣhi); of the two one shines and the other is dark.” But though the first half may be thus interpreted, another difficulty arises, as soon as we take up the third quarter of the verse. It says, “Two sisters are they, the dark (shyâvî) and the bright (arûṣhî).” Now the question is whether the two sisters (svasârau) here mentioned are the same as,, or different from, the twin pair (yamyâ) mentioned in the first half of the verse. If we take them as identical, the third pâda or quarter of the verse becomes at once superfluous. If we take them as different, we must explain how and where the two pairs differ. The commentators have not been able to solve the difficulty, and they have, therefore, adopted the course of regarding the twins (yamyâ) and the sisters (svasârau) as identical, even at the risk of tautology. It will surely be admitted that this is not a satisfactory course, and that we ought to find a better explanation, if we can. This is not again the only place where two distinct couples of Day and Night are mentioned. There is another word in the Ṛig-Veda which denotes a pair of Day and Night. It is Ahanî, which does not mean “two days” but Day and Night, for, in VI, 9, 1, we are expressly told that “there is a dark ahaḥ (day) and a bright ahaḥ (day).” Ahanî, therefore, means a couple of Day and Night, and we have seen

124 that Usḥâsâ-naktâ also means a couple of Day and Night. Are the two couples same or different? If Ahanî be regarded as synonymous with Uṣhâsâ-naktâ or Aho-râtre, then the two couples would be identical; otherwise different. Fortunately, Ṛig. IV, 55, 3, furnishes us with the means of solving this difficulty. There Usḥâsâ-naktâ and Ahanî are separately invoked to grant protection to the worshipper and the separate invocation clearly proves that the two couples are two separate dual deities, though each of them represents a couple of Day and Night.* Prof. Max Müller has noticed this difference between Usḥâsâ-naktâ and Ahanî or the two Ahans but he does not seem to have pushed it to its logical conclusion. If all the 360 days and nights of the year were of the same class as with us, there was no necessity of dividing them into two representative couples as Usḥâsâ-naktâ and Ahanî. The general description “dark, bright and of various lengths,” would have been quite sufficient to denote all the days and nights of the year. Therefore, if the distinction between Usḥâsâ-naktâ and Ahanî, made in IV, 55, 3, is not to be ignored, we must find out an explanation of this distinction; and looking to the character of days and nights at different places on the surface of the earth from the Pole to the Equator the only possible explanation that can be suggested is that the year spoken of in these passages was a circum-Polar year, made up of one long day and one long night, forming one pair, and a number of ordinary days and nights of various lengths, which, taking a single day and night as the type can be described as the second couple, “bright, dark and. of varying lengths.” There is no other place on the surface of the earth where the description holds good. At the Equator, we have only equal days and nights throughout the year and they can be represented by a single couple “dark and bright, but always of the same length.” In fact, instead of virûpe the pair would be sarûpe. Between the Equator and * Ṛig. IV, 55, 3, — पर पस्त्याम अदितिं सिन्धुम अर्कैः सवस्तिम ईळे सख्याय देवीम । उभे यथा नो अहनी निपात उषासानक्ता करताम अदब्धे ॥ See Max Müller’s Lectures on the science of Language, Vol. II, p. 534

125 the Arctic Circle, a day and night together never exceed twenty-four hours, though there may be a day of 23 hours and a night of one hour and vice versa, as we approach the Arctic Circle. In this case, the days of the year will have to be represented by a typical couple, “dark and night, but of various lengths, virûpe.” But as soon as we cross the Arctic Circle and go into “The Land of the Long Night,” the above description requires to be amended by adding to the first couple, another couple of the long day and the long night, the lengths of which would vary according to latitude. This second couple of the long day and the long night, which match each other, will have also to be designated as virûpe, with this difference, however, that while the length of days and nights in the temperate zone would vary at the same place, the length of the long night and the long day would not vary at one and the same place but only at different latitudes. Taking a couple of Day and Night, as representing the days and nights of the year, we shall have, therefore, to divide the different kinds of diurnal changes over the globe into three classes: — (i) At the Equator, — A single couple; dark and bright but always of the same form, or length (sarûpe). (ii) Between the Equator and the Arctic Circle, — A single couple; dark and bright, but of various forms, or lengths, (virûpe). (iii) Between the Arctic Circle and the Pole, — Two couples; each dark and bright, but of various forms or lengths (virûpe). At the Pole, there is only one day and one night of six months each. Now if we have an express passage in the Ṛig-Veda (IV, 55, 3) indicating two different couples of Day and. Night Ushâsâ-naktâ and Ahanî, it is evident that the ahorâtre represented by them are the days and nights of the Circum-Polar regions, and of those alone. In the light of IV, 55, 3, we must, therefore, interpret III, 55, 11, quoted above, as describing two couples, one of the twin pair and the other of two sisters. The verse must, therefore, be translated: —

126 “The twin pair (the first couple) make many forms (lengths); of the two one shines and the other is dark. Two sisters are they the shyâvî or the, dark and aruṣhî or the bright (the second couple).” No part of the verse is thus rendered superfluous, and the whole becomes far more comprehensible than otherwise. We have seen that days and nights are represented by two distinct typical couples in the Ṛig-Veda Uṣhasâ-naktâ and Ahanî; and that if the distinction is not unmeaning we must take this to be the description of the days and nights within the Arctic Circle. Whether Ahanî means a couple of Day and Night distinct from Uṣhasâ-naktâ in every place where the word occurs, it is difficult to say. But that in some places, at least, it denotes a peculiar couple of the Day and Night, not included in, and different from, Uṣhâsa-naktâ is evident from IV, 55, 3. Now if Ahanî really means the couple of the long day and the long night, as distinguished from the ordinary days and nights, there is another way in which these two couples can be differentiated from each other. The ordinary days and nights follow each other closely the day is succeeded by the night and the night by the day; and the two members of the couple, representing these days and nights, cannot be described as separated from each other. But the long night and the long day, though of equal duration do not follow each other in close succession. The long night occurs about the time when the sun is at the winter solstice, and the long day when he is at the summer solstice; and these two solstitial points are separated by 180°, being opposite to each other in the ecliptic. This character of Ahanî seems to have been traditionally known in the time of the Âraṇyakas. Thus the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka, I, 2, 3, in discussing the personified year,* first says that the Year has one head, and two different mouths, and then remarks that all this is “season-characteristic,” which the commentator explains by stating that the Year-God is said to have two mouths * Taitt. Âran. I, 2, 3.

127 because it has two Ayanas, the northern and the southern, which include the seasons. But the statement important for our purpose is the one which follows next. The Âraṇyaka continues “To the right and the left side of the Year-God (are) the bright and the dark (days)” and the following verse refers to it: — “Thy one (form) is bright, thy another sacrificial (dark), two Ahans of different forms, though art like Dyau. Thou, O Self-dependent! protectest all magic powers, O Pûṣhan! let thy bounty be here auspicious.”* The verse, or the Mantra, here referred to is Ṛig. VI, 58, 1. Pûṣhan is there compared to Dyau and is said to have two forms, dark and bright, like the Ahanî. These dark and bright forms of Ahanî are said to constitute the right and left side of the Year-God, that is, the two opposite parts of the body of the personified year. In other words the passage clearly states that the dark and the bright part of Ahanî, do not, follow each other closely, but are situated on the diametrically opposite sides of the year. This can only be the case if the couple of Day and Night, represented by Ashanî, be taken to denote the long night and the long day in the Arctic regions. There the long night is matched by the long day and while the one occurs when the sun is at the winter-solstice, the other occurs when he is at the summer-solstice. The two parts of Ahanî are, therefore, very correctly represented as forming the right and the left side of the Year-God, in the Âraṇyaka, and the passage thus materially supports the view about the nature of Ahanî mentioned above. Lastly, we have express passage in the Ṛig-Veda where a long day is described. In V, 54, 5, an extended daily course (dirgham yojanam) of the sun is mentioned and the Maruts are said to have extended their strength and greatness in a similar way.† But the most explicit statement about the long * Taitt. Âraṇyaka, I, 2, 4. † Ṛig. V, 54, 5, — तद वीर्यं वो मरुतो महित्वनं दीर्घं ततान सूर्यो न योजनम । एता न यामे अग्र्भीतशोचिषो ऽनश्वदां यन नय अयातना गिरिम ॥

128 day is found in X, 138, 3. This hymn celebrates the exploits of Indra, all of which are performed in aerial or heavenly regions. In the first verse the killing of Vṛitra and the releasing of the dawns and the waters are mentioned; and in the second the sun is said to have been made to shine by the same process. The third verse* is as follows: — Vi sûryo madhye amuchad ratham divo     vidad dâsâya pratimânam âryaḥ | Dṛiḍhâni Pipror asurasya mâyinaḥ     Indro vyâsyach chakṛivâṁ Ṛijishvanâ || The fourth, fifth and the sixth verses all refer to the destruction of Vṛitra’s forts, the chastisement of Uṣhas and placing of the moons in the heaven. But the third verse quoted above is alone important for our purpose. The words are simple and easy and the verse may be thus translated “The sun unyoked his car in the midst of heaven; the Ârya found a counter-measure (pratimânam) for the Dâsa. Indra, acting with Ṛijishvan, overthrew the solid forts of Pipru, the conjuring Asura. “It is the first half of the verse that is relevant to our purpose. The sun is said to have unyoked his car, not at sunset, or on the horizon, but in the midst of heaven, there to rest for some time. There is no uncertainty about it, for the words are so clear; and the commentators have found it difficult to explain this extraordinary conduct of the sun in the midway of the heavens. Mr. Griffith says that it is, perhaps an allusion to an eclipse, or to the detention of the sun to enable the Aryans to complete the overthrow of their enemies. Both of these suggestions are, however, not satisfactory. During a solar eclipse the sun being temporarily hidden by the moon is invisible wholly or partially and is not besides stationary. The description that the sun unyoked his car in the mid-heaven cannot, therefore, apply to the eclipsed sun. As regards the other suggestion, viz., that the sun remained stationary for a while to * Ṛig. X, 138, 3 — वि सूर्यो मध्ये अमुचद रथं दिवो विदद दासय परतिमानमार्यः । दर्ळानि पिप्रोरसुरस्य मायिन इन्द्रो वयास्यच्चक्र्वान रजिश्वना ॥

129 allow his favorite race, the Aryans, to overthrow their enemies, it seems to have had its origin in the Biblical passage (Joshua, X, 12, 13), where the sun is said to have stood still, at the word of Joshua, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. But there is no authority for importing this Biblical idea into the Ṛig-Veda. Indra’s exploits are described in a number of hymns in the Ṛig-Veda, but in no other hymn he is said to have made the sun stand still for the Aryans. We must, therefore, reject both the explanations suggested by Griffith. Sâyaṇa gets over the difficulty by interpreting the phrase, ratham vi amuchat madhye divaḥ, as meaning that “the sun loosened (viamuchat) his carriage, that is, set it free to travel, towards the middle (madhye) of heaven, (ratham prasthânâya vimuktavân).” Sâyaṇa’s meaning, therefore, is that when Indra obtained compensation from Vṛitra, he let loose the chariot of the sun to travel towards the midst of the sky. But the construction is evidently a strained one. The verb vi much is used in about a dozen places in the Ṛig-Veda in relation to horses, and everywhere it means to “unharness,” “unyoke,” or “separate the horses from the carriage for rest,” and even Sâyaṇa has interpreted it in the same way. Thus vi-muchya is explained by him as rathât vishliṣhya in I, 104, 1, and rathât vi-muchya in III, 32, 1, and rathât visṛijya in X, 160, 1, (also compare I, 171, 1; I, 177, 4; VI, 40, 1). The most natural meaning of the present verse would, therefore, be that the “sun unyoked his carriage.” But even supposing that vi much can be interpreted to mean “to loosen for travel,” the expression would be appropriate only when there is an antecedent stoppage or slow motion of the sun. The question why the sun stopped or slackened his motion in the midst of the sky would, therefore, still remain unsolved. The phrase divaḥ madhye naturally means “in the midst of the sky,” and cannot be interpreted to mean “towards the mid-heaven.” Of course if the sun was below the horizon, we may describe him as having loosened his horses for travel as in V, 62, 1; but even there the meaning seems to

130 be that the horses rested at the place. In the present case the sun is already in the midst of heaven, and we cannot take him below the horizon without a palpable distortion of meaning. Nor can we properly explain the action of retaliation (pratimânam), if we accept Sâyaṇa’s interpretation. We must, therefore, interpret the first half of the verse to mean that “the sun unyoked his carriage in the midst of heaven.” There is another passage in the Ṛig-Veda which speaks of the sun halting in the midst of heaven. In VII, 87, 5, the king Varuṇa is said to have made “the golden (sun) rock like a swing in the heaven” (chakre divi preṅkhâm hiraṇmayam), clearly meaning that the sun swayed backwards and forwards in the heaven being visible all the time, (cf. also VII, 88, 3). The idea expressed in the present verse is exactly the same, for even within the Arctic regions the sun will appear as swinging only during the long continuous day, when he does not go below the horizon once every twenty-four hours. There is, therefore, nothing strange or uncommon in the present verse which says that, “the sun unyoked his carriage for some time in the midst of the sky;” and we need not be impatient to escape from the natural meaning of the verse. A long halt of the sun in the midst of the heaven is here clearly described, and we must take it to refer to the long day in the Arctic region. The statement in the second line further supports the same view. European scholars appear to have been misled, in this instance, by the words Ârya ane Dâsa, which they are accustomed to interpret as meaning the Aryan and the non-Aryan race. But though the words may be interpreted in this way in some passages, such is not the case everywhere. The word Dâsa is applied to Indra’s enemies in a number of places. Thus Shambara is called a Dâsa (IV, 30, 14,) and the same adjective is applied to Pipru in VIII, 32, 2, and to Namuchi in V, 30, 7. Indra is said to inspire fear into the Dâsa in X, 120, 2 and in II, 11, 2 he is described as having rent the Dâsa who consider ed himself immortal. In the verse under consideration Indra’s victory over Pipru is celebrated, and we know that Pipru is

131 elsewhere called a Dâsa. It is, therefore, quite natural to suppose that the words Ârya and Dâsa in the above verse, refer to Indra and Pipru, and not to the Aryan and the non-Aryan race. The exploits described are all heavenly, and it jars with the context to take a single sentence in the whole hymn as referring to the victory of the Aryan over the non-Aryan race. There is again the word Pratimâna (lit. counter-measure), which denotes that what has been done is by way of retaliation, a sort of counter-poise or counterblast, with a view to avenge the mischief done by Dâsa. A battle between the Aryans and the non-Aryans cannot be so described unless a previous defeat of the Aryans is first alluded to. The plain meaning of the verse, therefore, is that the sun was made to halt in the midst of the sky, producing a long day, and Indra thus found a counter-poise for Dâsa his enemy. For we know that darkness is brought on by the Dâsa, and it is he who brings on the long night; but if the Dâsa made the night long, Indra retaliated or counter-acted by making the day as long as the night of the Dâsa. The long night of the Arctic regions is, we have seen, matched by the long day in those regions, and the present verse expresses the same idea of matching the one by the other. There is no reference to the victory of the Aryan race over the non-Aryans, or anything of that kind as supposed by Western scholars. Sâyaṇa, who had no historic theories to mislead him, has rightly interpreted Ârya and Dâsa in this verse as referring to Indra and his enemy; but he, in his turn, has misinterpreted as shown above, the first half of the verse in regard to the sun’s long halt in the midst of the sky. The misinterpretation of the: second hemistich conies from Western scholars, like Muir who interprets Ârya as meaning the Aryans and Dâsa, the non-Aryans. This shows how in the absence of the true key to the meaning of a passage, we may be led away by current theories, even where the words are plain and simple in themselves. We thus-see that the Ṛig-Veda speaks of two different couples of Day and Night, one alone of which represents the

132 ordinary days and nights in the year and the second, the Ahanî, is a distinct couple by itself, forming, according to the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka, the right and the left hand side of the Year, indicating the long Arctic day and night. The Taittirîya Saṁhitâ again gives us in clear terms a tradition that in the former age the night was so long that men were afraid it would not dawn. We have also a number of expressions in the Ṛig-Veda denoting “long nights” or “long and ghastly darkness” and also the “long journey” of the sun. Prayers are also offered to Vedic deities to enable the worshipper to reach safely the end of the night, the “other boundary of which is not known.” Finally we have an express text declaring that the sun halted in the midst of the sky and thereby retaliated the mischief brought on by Dâsa’s causing the long night. Thus we have not only the long day and the long night mentioned in the Ṛig-Veda, but the idea that the two match, each other is also found therein, while the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka tells us that they form the opposite sides of Year-God. Besides the passages proving the long duration of the dawn, we have, therefore, sufficient independent evidence to hold that the long night in the Arctic regions and its counterpart the long day were both known to the poets of the Ṛig-Veda and the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ distinctly informs us that it was a phenomenon of the former (purâ) age. I shall close this chapter with a short discussion of another Circum-Polar characteristic, I mean the southern course of the sun. It is previously stated, that the sun can never appear overhead at any station in the temperate or the frigid zone and that an observer stationed within these zones in the northern hemisphere will see the sun to his right hand or towards the south, while at the North Pole the sun will seem to rise from the south. Now the word dakṣhiṇâ in Vedic Sanskrit denotes both the “right hand” and the “south” as it does in other Aryan languages; for, as observed by Prof. Sayce, these people had to face the rising sun with their right hands to the south, in addressing their gods and hence Sanskrit dakṣhiṇâ, Welsh dehau and Old Irish des all mean

133 at once “right hand” and “south.”* With this explanation before us, we can now understand how in a number of passages in the Ṛig-Veda Western scholars translate dakṣhiṇâ by “right side,” where Indian scholars take the word to mean “the southern direction.” There is a third meaning of dakṣhiṇa, viz., “largess” or “guerdon,” and in some places the claims of rich largesses seem to have been pushed too far. Thus when the suns are said to be only for dakṣhiṇâvats in I, 125, 6, it looks very probable that originally the expression had some reference to the southern direction rather than to the gifts given at sacrifices. In III, 58, I, Sûrya is called the son of Dakṣhiṇâ and even if Dakṣhiṇâ be here taken to mean the Dawn, yet the question why the Dawn was called Dakṣhiṇâ remains, and the only explanation at present suggested is that Dakṣhiṇâ means “skilful” or “expert.” A better way to explain these phrases is to make them refer to the southerly direction; and after what has been said above such an explanation will seem to be highly probable. It is, of course, necessary to be critical in the interpretation of the Vedic hymns, but I think that we shall be carrying our critical spirit too far, if we say that in no passage in the Ṛig-Veda dakṣhiṇâ or its derivatives are used to denote the southerly direction (I, 95, 6; II, 42, 3). Herodotus informs us, (IV, 42) that certain Phoenician mariners were commanded by Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, to sail round Libya (Africa) and return by the Pillars of Hercules (Straits of Gibraltar). The mariners accomplished the voyage and returned in the third year. But Herodotus disbelieves them, because, on their return they told such (to him incredible) stories, that in rounding Libya they saw the sun to their right. Herodotus could not believe that the sun would ever appear in the north; but the little thought that what was incredible to him would itself be regarded as indisputable evidence of the authenticity of the account in later days. Let * See Sayce’s Introduction to the Science of Language, Vol. II, p. 130,

134 us take a lesson from this story, and not interpret dakṣhiṇâ, either by “right-hand side” or by “largess,” in every passage in the Ṛig-Veda. There may not be distinct passages to show that the sun, or the dawn, came from the south. But the very fact that Uṣhas is called Dakṣhiṇâ (I, 123, 1; X, 107, 1), and the sun, the son of Dakṣhiṇâ (III, 58, 1), is itself very suggestive, and possibly we have here phrases which the Vedic bards employed because in their days these were old and recognized expressions in the language. Words, like fossils, very often preserve the oldest ideas or facts in a language; and though Vedic poets may have forgotten the original meaning of these phrases, that is no reason why we should refuse to draw from the history of these words such conclusions as may legitimately follow from it. The fact that the north is designated by the word ut-tara, meaning “upper” and the south by adha-ra, meaning “lower,” also points to the same conclusion; for the north cannot be over-head or “upper” except to an observer at or near the North Pole. In later literature, we find a tradition that the path of the sun lies through regions which are lower (adha) than the abode of the Seven Ṛiṣhis, or the constellation of Ursa Major.* That ecliptic lies to the south of the constellation is plain enough, but it cannot be said to be below the constellation, unless the zenith of the observer is in the constellation, or between it and the North Pole, a position, possible only in the case of an observer in the Arctic region. I have already quoted a passage from the Ṛig-Veda, which speaks of the Seven Bears (Ṛikṣhâḥ), as being placed on high in the heavens (uchchâḥ). But I have been not able to find out any Vedic authority for the tradition that the sun’s path lies below the constellation of the Seven Bears. It has also been stated previously that mere southerly direction of the sun, even if completely established, is not a sure indication * See Kâlidâsa’s Kumârasambhava, VI, 7; Also I, 16. See also Mallinâtha’s commentary on these verses.

135 of the observer being within the circum-polar region as the sun will appear to move always to the south of the observer even in the temperate zone. It is, therefore, not necessary to pursue this point further. It has been shown that the Ṛig-Veda mentions the long night and the long day and we shall see in the next chapter that the months and the seasons mentioned in this Old Book fully accord with the theory we have formed from the evidence hitherto discussed.