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

218 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
that the Shata-râtra sacrifice mentioned in the sacrificial works
is not an Ashvamedha sacrifice. But the distinction is neither
important, nor material. The Ashvamedha sacrifice is a Soma
sacrifice and is described in the sacrificial works along with the
night-sacrifices. In the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ (VII, 2, 11,) a hundred
offerings of food to be made in the Ashvamedha sacrifice are
mentioned, and the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa (III, 8, 15, 1) states that
Prajâpati obtained these offerings "during the night," and con-
sequently they are called Râtri-homas. The duration of the Ashva-
medha sacrifice is again not fixed, inasmuch as it depends upon
the return of the horse, and in the Ṛig-Veda (I, 163, 1) the sacri-
ficial horse is identified with the sun moving in waters. The re-
turn of the sacrificial horse may, therefore, be taken to symbo-
lise the return of the sun after the long night, and a close re-
semblance between the Ashvamedha and the night-sacrifices,
which were performed to enable Indra to fight with Vala and
rescue the dawn and the sun from his clutches, may thus be taken
as established. At any rate, we need not be surprised if the Shata-
râtra Soma sacrifice appears in the form of a hundred Ashva-
medha sacrifices in the Purâṇas. The tradition is substantially
the same in either case, and when it can be so easily and natural-
ly explained on the Arctic theory, it would not be reasonable to
set it aside, and hold that the writers of the Purâṇas created it
by misinterpreting the word shata-kratu occurring in the Vedas.
We have seen that shata-kratu as applied to Indra is in-
terpreted by Western scholars, and in many places even by Sâ-
yaṇa himself, as meaning the lord of a hundred powers. Sâ-
yaṇa now and then (III, 51, 2; X, 103, 7) suggests or gives
an alternative explanation, and makes Indra 'the master of a
hundred sacrifices'; but Western scholars have gone further
and discarded all other explanations except the one noted
above. It is, therefore, necessary to examine the meaning of
this epithet, as used in the Ṛig-Veda, a little more closely in