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

VEDIC MYTHS—THE CAPTIVE WATERS. 281
directly opposed to the statement (X, 62, 2) that "Vala was
killed at the end of the year (parivatsare)." Some scholars try
to get out of the difficulty by suggesting that the passage may be
taken as referring to a famine or drought that occurred after
40 years, or that it may represent a forty years' war between the
Aryans protected by Indra, and Shambara, the chief of the
aboriginal races dwelling on the mountains! But both these
explanations are too far-fetched and imaginary to deserve any
serious attention or refutation. The story of Shambara is men-
tioned in a number of places in the Ṛig-Veda, and everywhere it
represents Indra's conflict with Vṛitra.* It is, therefore, prepos-
terous to hold that a forty years' war with the aboriginies. is
referred to in this single passage, especially when the
passage is capable of being interpreted differently without
straining the words used. It is the most ordinary Sanskrit
idiom to use the locative case in mentioning the month,
the day, the season or the year, when a particular incident
is said to have taken place. Thus, even now, we say,
"Kârttike, shukla-pakshe, trayodashyâm," meaning "in the
month of Kârttika, in the bright half, on the thirteenth (tithi
or day)." The feminine ordinal numerals, like chaturthî, ekâ-
dashî, trayodashî, are always used, without any noun, to de-
note the tithi or the day of the month, or the fortnight, as the
case may be. Thus in the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa (I, 1, 9, 10),
we have the expression "yadi saṁvatsare na âdadhyât dvâ-
dashyâm purastât âdadhyât," meaning that "if the sacrificial
fire is not consecrated at the end of the year (saṁvatsare), it
should be consecrated on the twelfth (dvâdashyâm) afterwards."
Here dvâdashyâm is a feminine ordinal in the locative case
used by itself, and means "on the twelfth tithi or day" after
the end of the year mentioned in the preceding sentence.

• See the Nivids, quoted supra (p. 246). Shambara-hatya or the
  fight with Shambara, and go-ishṭi or the struggle for cows are declared
  to be the one and the same in these nivids