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

VEDIC MYTHS—THE CAPTIVE WATERS. 243
helped Indra in the battle, it was easily explained by the Storm
theory, because a thunderstorm or rain was always accompanied
by stormy weather. But a more difficult point in the legend,
which required explanation, was the hemming in or the captiva-
ting of the waters by Vṛitra or Ahi. In the case of waters in the
clouds it was easy to imagine that they were kept captive in the
cloud by the demon of drought. But the Ṛig-Veda often speaks
of sindhus or streams being released by the slaughter of Vṛitra;
and if the streams or rivers really represented, as conceived by
the advocates of this theory, the rivers of the Panjaub, it was
rather difficult to understand how they could be described as be-
ing hemmed in or kept captive by Vṛitra. But the ingenuity of
Vedic scholars was quite eqral to the occasion, and it was sug-
gested that, as the rivers in India often entirely dried up in sum-
mer, the god of the rainy season, who called them back to life,
could be rightly described as releasing them from the grasp of
Vṛitra. The Indian Nairuktas do not appear to have extended
the theory any further. But in the hands of German mytholo-
gians the Storm theory became almost a rival to the Dawn
theory; and stories, like that of Saraṇyu, have been explained
by them as referring to the movements of dark storm-clouds
hovering in the sky. "Clouds, storms, rains, lightning and
thunder," observes Prof. Kuhn, "were the spectacles that
above all others impressed the imagination of the early Aryans
and busied it most in finding terrestrial objects to compare with
their ever-varying aspects. The beholders were at home on
the earth, and the things on the earth were comparitively
familiar to them; even the coming and going of the celestial
luminaries might often be regarded by them with more com-
posure, because of their regularity; but they could never sur-
cease to feel the liveliest interest in those wonderful meteoric
changes, so lawless and mysterious in their visitations, which
wrought such immediate and palpable effects for good or ill