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

142 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
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 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 pal-
pable distortion of meaning. Nor can we properly explain the
action of retaliation (pratimānam), if we accept Sâyaṇa's inter-
pretation. 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 preṅkhaṁ 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
Ārya and Dâsa, which they are accustomed to interpret as