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

156 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
twelve Âdityas are identified with the twelve months of the
year. The number of Âdityas is also given as twelve in the
Upaniṣhads : while in the post-Vedic literature they are every-
where said to be twelve, answering to the twelve months f the
year. Muir, in his Original Sanskrit Texts, Volumes IV and V,
gives most of these passages, but offers no explanation as to the
legend of Aditi, except such as is to be found in the passages
quoted. There are many different speculations or theories of
Western Scholars regarding the nature and character of Aditi,
but as far as the number of Âdityas is concerned, I know of no
satisfactory explanation as yet suggested by them. On the con-
trary the tendency is, as observed by Prof. Max Muller, to regard
the number, seven or eight, as unconnected with any solar move-
ments. A suggestion is made that the eight Âdityas may be
taken to represent the eight cardinal points of the compass, but
the death or casting away of the eighth Âditya seals the fate
of this explanation, which thus seems to have been put forward
only to be rejected like Mârtâṇḍa, the eighth Âditya.
We have here referred to, or quoted, the texts and passages
bearing on Aditi's legend, or the number of Âdityas, at some
length, in order to show how we are apt to run into wild spe-
culations about the meaning of a simple legend when the key to
it is lost. That the twelve Âdityas are understood to represent
the twelve month-gods in later Vedic literature is evident from
the passage in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa (XI, 6, 3, 8=Bṛih.
Ârṇ. Up. III, 9, 5), which says "There are twelve months of the
year ; these are the Âdityas." With this explanation before us,
and the belief that different seasonal changes could be explained
only by assuming the existence of different suns, it required no
. very great stretch of imagination to infer that if twelve Âdityas
now represent the twelve months of the year, the seven Âdityas
must have once (pûrvyam yugam) represented the seven