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

MONTHS AND SEASONS. 157
months of the year. But this explanation, reasonable though
it was, did not commend itself, or we might even say, occur
to Vedic scholars, who believed that the home of the Aryans
lay somewhere in Central Asia. It is, therefore, satisfactory
to find that the idea of different suns producing different
months is recognised so expressly in the Taittirīya Âraṇyaka,
which quotes a Vedic text, not now available, in support
thereof, and finally pronounces in favour of the theory, which
regards the seven suns as presiding over seven different heavenly
regions and thereby producing different seasons, in spite of the
objection that it would lead to the assumption of thousands of
suns—an objection, which the Âraṇyaka disposes of summarily
by observing that eight is a settled number, and that we have
no right to change it. That this explanation is the most probable
of all is further evident from Ṛig. IX, 114, 3, which says "There
are seven sky-regions (sapta dishaḥ), with their different suns
(nānā sūryāḥ), there are seven Hotṛis as priests, those who are
the seven gods, the Âdityas,—with them, O Soma! protect us."
Here nānā-sūryāḥ is an adjective which qualifies dishaḥ (sapta),
and the co-relation between seven regions and seven suns is
thus expressly recognised. Therefore, the simplest explanation
of Aditi's legend is that she presented to the gods, that is, brought
forth into heavens, her seven sons, the Âdityas, to form the seven
months of sunshine in the place. She had an eighth son, but he
was born in an undeveloped state, or, was, what we may call, still-
born; evidently meaning that the eighth month was not a month
of sunshine, or that the period of darkness at the place commen-
ced with the eighth month. All this occured not in this age, but
in the previous age, and the words pūrvyam yugam in X, 72, 9, are
very important from this point of view. The word yuga is evi-
dently used to denote a period of time in the first and second
verses of the hymn, which refer to the former age of the gods;