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

204 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
Hêlios representing the days, and 350 sheep representing the
nights. He also notices that in German mythology 700 gold
rings of Wieland, the smith, are spoken of, and comparing the
number with 720 sons of Agni mentioned in I, 164, 11, he
draws from it the conclusion that a year of 350 days is also
represented in the German mythology. This year is shorter
by ten days than the civil year of 360 days, or falls short of
the full solar year by 15 days. It is, therefore, clear, that if a
year of 350 days existed before the Aryan separation, it must
have been followed by a continuous night of ten days ; while,
where the year was of 300 days, the long night extended over
60 days of 24 hours each. We shall thus have different kinds
of long nights; and it is necessary to see if we can collect evi-
dence to indicate the longest duration of the night known be-
fore the Aryan separation. Speaking of the cows or oxen of
Hêlios, as stated in the passage quoted above, Prof. Max Mul-
ler goes on to observe :-
"The cows or oxen of Hêlios thus receive their back-
ground from the Veda, but what is told of them by Homer is
by no means clear. When it is said that the companions of
Odysseus consumed the oxen of Hêlios, and that they thus
forfeited their return home, we can hardly take this in the
modern sense of consuming or wasting their days, thought it
may be difficult to assign any other definite meaning to it.
Equally puzzling is the fable alluded to in the Homeric hymn
that Hermes stole the oxen of Apollon and killed two of them.
The number of Apollon's oxen is given as fifty (others give
the number as 100 cows, twelve oxen and one bull), which
looks like the number of weeks in the lunar year, but why
Hermes should be represented as carrying off the whole herd
and then killing two, is difficult to guess, unless we refer it to
the two additional months in a cycle of four years."
In the light of the Arctic theory the puzzle here referred
to is solved without any difficulty. The stealing away or the