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

122 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
as containing a connected account of thirty dawns divided into
five groups of six each. The question is not, however, very
material, inasmuch as verses 5 and 6, whether they formed part
of an entire hymn or not, are by themselves sufficient to prove
the point at issue, viz., that the Vedic Goddess of Dawn
constituted a group of thirty sisters. The Ṛig-Veda speaks of
"thirty steps" traversed by the Dawn, (VI, 59, 6), or of Dawns
going round "thirty yojanas" (I, 123, 8); but both these state-
ments have, as yet, remained totally unexplained, or have been
but imperfectly explained by Indian and Western scholars alike.
But now that we know that the Vedic Dawns were thirty in
number, both the aforesaid statements become at once easily
comprehensible. The only other point necessary to be decided,
so far as the subject in hand is concerned, is whether these thirty
dawns were the dawns of thirty consecutive days, or whether
they formed a 'closely-gathered band' of thirty continuous dawns;
and on reading the two aforesaid passages from the Taittirîya
Saṁhitâ, the one from the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, II. 5, 6, 5, and
other authorities cited in the foregoing chapter, I do not think,
there can be any doubt that the Goddess of Dawn, worshipped
by the Vedic bards, was originally a group of thirty continuous
dawns. It is not contended that the ancestors of the Vedic bards
were unacquainted with ordinary dawns, for, even in the
circumpolar regions there are, during certain parts of the year,
successions of ordinary days and nights and with them of ordinary
dawns. But so far as the Vedic Goddess of morning is concerned,
there is enough evidence to shew that it was no other than the
continuous and revolving Dawn at the end of the long night in
those regions, the Dawn that lasted for thirty periods of 24 hours
each, which is possible only within a few degrees round-about the
North Pole.