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

VEDIC MYTHS—THE CAPTIVE WATERS. 261
interterranean ground. When we meet with two such phrases as
the heaven "above the three earths," and the region "below the
three earths," in the Ṛig-Veda, phrases, which cannot be mistaken
or misunderstood, the hypothesis that the Vedic bards were not
acquainted with the nether world at once falls to the ground.
Mr. Wallis seems to think that since rajas is said to be
divided three-fold, like the earth, and since the highest rajas is
mentioned as the seat of waters, there is no scope in the Vedic
division of rajas for a region beneath the earth; for the three
rajas are exhausted by taking them as the rajas of the earth
(pârthivam), the rajas of the sky (divo rajaḥ) and the highest
(paramam) rajas, the seat of waters. But this objection is quite
untenable, inasmuch as six different rajas are also mentioned in
the Ṛig-Veda (I, 164, 6). We can, therefore, suppose that there
were three rajas above the earth and three below it, and so
meet the apparent difficulty pointed out by Wallis. The three
rajas can in some places be also interpreted to mean the earthly
rajas, the one above the earth and the one below it, (X, 82, 4,).
In I, 35, 2, the Savitṛi is described as moving through the dark
rajas (kṛiṣhṇena rajasâ), and in the next verse we are told that
he comes from the distant (parâvat) region, which shows that
the dark rajas and the parâvat region are synonymous, and that
the sun ascends the sky after passing through the dark rajas.
Again the use of the word 'ascend' (ud-yan or ud-âcharat, I, 163,
1; VII, 55, 7), to describe the rising of the sun in the morning from
the ocean, shows, by contrast, that the ocean which the sun is
said to enter at the time of setting (X, 114, 4) is really an ocean
underneath the earth. In I, 117, 5, the sun is described as
sleeping in "the lap of Nir-ṛiti," and "dwelling in darkness";
while in I, 164, 32 and 33, the sun is said to have travelled in the
interior of heaven and earth and finally gone into Nir-ṛiti, or as
Prof. Max Muller renders it, 'the exodus in the west.' Now, in X,