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

MONTHS AND SEASONS. 165
no reason for the Dashagvas to curtail their sacrifices and com-
plete them in ten months. Consequently the only inference
we can draw from the story of the Navagvas and the Dashagvas
is that they carried on their sacrifices during ten months of sun-
shine and after that period, the sun went to dwell in darkness or
sank below the horizon, and Indra, invigorated by the Soma
libations of the Dashagvas, then entered into the cave of Vala,
rent it open, released the cows of the morning and brought out
the sun at the end of the old and the beginning of the new year,
when the Dashagvas again commenced their sacrifices after the
long dawn or dawns. In short, the Dashagvas and the Navagvas,
and with them all the ancient sacrificers of the race, lived in a
region where the sun was above the horizon for ten months, and
then went down, producing a long yearly night of two months'
duration. These ten months, therefore, formed the annual
sacrificial session, or the calendar year, of the oldest sacrificers
of the Aryan race, and we shall see in the next chapter that
independently of the legend of the Dashagvas this view is fully
supported by direct references to such a session in the Vedic
sacrificial literature.
The etymology of the words Navagva and Dashagva
leads us to the same conclusion. The words are formed by
prefixing nava and dasha to gva. So far there is no dif-
ference of opinion. But Yâska (XI, 19) takes nava in na-
vagva to mean either 'new' or 'charming,' interpreting the
word to mean 'those, who have charming or new career (gva,
from gam to go)'. This explanation of Yâska is, however, un-
satisfactory, inasmuch as the Navagvas and the Dashagvas are
usually mentioned together in the Ṛig-Veda, and this close
and frequent association of their names makes it necessary for
us to find out such an etymological explanation of the words as
would make Navagva bear the same relation to nava as