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

VEDIC MYTHS—THE CAPTIVE WATERS. 295
aerial waters, a theory which is also found in the mythology
of many other nations, now clears up the whole mystery. If
Indra is described as the leader or the releaser of waters (apâm
netâ, or apâm srashtâ), the waters do not mean the waters
in the clouds, but the waters or the watery vapours which fill
the universe, and formed the material out of which the latter
was created. In other words, the conquest over waters was
something grander, something far more marvellous and cosmic
in character than the mere breaking up of the clouds in the
rainy season; and under these circumstances it was naturally
considered to be the greatest of Indra's exploits, when, in-
vigorated by a hundred nightly Soma sacrifices, he slew with
ice the watery demon of darkness, shattered his hundred
autumnal forts, released the waters or the seven rivers up-
stream to go along their aerial way and brought out the sun
and the dawn, or the cows, from their place of confinement
inside the rocky caves, where they had stood still since the
date of the war, which, according to a Vedic passage, hitherto
misread and misunderstood, commenced in higher latitudes
every year on the 40th day of Sharad or autumn and lasted till
the end of winter. It is not contended that Indra had never
been the god of rain. There are a few passages in the Ṛig-
Veda (IV, 26, 2; VIII, 6, 1), where he is expressly mentioned
as sending down rain, or is compared to a rain-god. But
as Vṛitra-han or the killer of Vṛitra and the releaser of waters
and the dawn, it is impossible to identify him with the god
of rain. The story of the release of captive waters is an
ancient story; for Vṛitra appears as Orthros in the Greek mytho-
logy, and Vṛitra-han, as Verethragna, is the god of victory in
the Parsi scriptures. Now this Vṛitra-han may not have
been originally the same as Indra, for the word Indra does not
occur in European Aryan languages, and it has, therefore, been
suggested by some comparative mythologians that the con-
quest of waters, which was originally the exploit of some other