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

VEDIC MYTHS—THE MATUTINAL DEITIES. 309
supreme and one who lost it fell down. Thus "when Yima
lost his Glory he perished and Azi Dahâka reigned; as when
light disappears, the fiend rules supreme."* It may also be
noticed that amongst the persons to whom the glory belonged
in ancient days are mentioned the seven Amesha Spentas, all
of one thought, one speech and one deed. We have thus a
very close resemblance between the glory said to have been
placed in a bowl with bottom up and guarded by the seven
Ṛiṣhis in the Vedas, and the Hvarenô or the glory mentioned
in the Avesta, which once belonged to the seven Amesha
Spentas, and which thrice went away from Yima and had
to be restored to him by fighting with Azi Dahâka, the
Avestic representative of the Ahi Vṛitra, in the sea Vouru-
Kasha; and this strengthens our view that the bowl with the
bottom up and the mouth downwards is the inverted hemi-
sphere of the nether world, the seat of darkness and the home
of aerial waters. It was this region wherein Bhujyu
was plunged and had to be saved by the intervention of the
Ashvins.
Now if Bhujyu was plunged in this bottomless darkness
and ocean for three nights and three days (I, 116, 4), or
Rebha was there for ten nights and nine days (I, 116, 24),
it is clear that the period represents a continuous darkness
of so many days and nights as stated above; and I think,
the story of Ṛijrâshva, or the Red-horse, also refers to
the same incident, viz., the continuous darkness of the
Arctic region. Ṛijrâshva, that is, the Red-horse, is said to have
slaughtered 100 or 101 sheep and gave them to the Vṛiki, or
the she-wolf, and his own father being angry on that account
is said to have deprived him of his sight. But the Ashvins
at the prayer of the she-wolf restored to Ṛijrâshva his eye-
sight and thus cured him of his blindness. Prof. Max Muller
thinks that the sheep may here mean the stars, which may be
said to have been slaughtered by the rising sun. But we have

• See S. B. E. Series, Vol. IV, Introd, p. lxiii.