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

VEDIC MYTHS—THE MATUTINAL DEITIES. 317
the long darkness (dîrgham tamaḥ), and who eventually comes-
out as the child of waters (apâm napât, I, 143, 1). The epithet
apâm napât as applied to Agni is usually explained as referring
to the lightening produced from the clouds, but this explanation
does not account for the fact of his long residence in darkness.
The puzzle or the riddle is, however, satisfactorily solved by the
Arctic theory, combined with the cosmic circulation of aerial
waters. The sun, who moves in the interior of heaven and
earth for ten months, as in the womb of his mother, naturally
suggested to the Vedic poets the parallel idea of the period of
ten months' gestation; but the wonder was that while a child
is visible to all as soon as it is born, the sun became invisible
just at the time when he came out of the womb. Where did
he go? Was he locked up in a wooden chest or bound down
with leather straps in the region of waters? Why did the
mother not present him to the father after he was safely de-
livered? Was he safely delivered? These questions natural-
ly arise out of the story, and the Vedic poets appear to
take delight in reverting again and again to the same paradox
in different places. And what applies to Sûrya or the sun ap-
plies to Agni as well; for there are many passages in the Ṛig-
Veda where Agni is identified with the sun. Thus Agni is
said to be the light of heaven in the bright sky, waking at
dawn, the head of heaven (III, 2, 14), and he is described as
having been born on the other side of the air in X, 187, 5. In
the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa (VIII, 28), we are further told that
the sun, when setting, enters into Agni and is reproduced from
the latter; and the same identification appears to be alluded
to in the passages from the Ṛig-Veda, where Agni is said to
unite with the light of the sun or to shine in heaven (VIII, 44,
29). The story of concealing the child after ten months of
gestation whether applied to Agni or to Sûrya is thus only
a different version of the story of the disappearance of the
sun from the upper hemisphere after ten months of sunshine.