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

320 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
where, according to latitude, the sun is above the horizon from
6 to 12 months. The sacrificial session of the Navagvas and the
Dashagvas thus lasted for nine or ten months, and amongst the
Ashvins' legends, that of Saptavadhri is just shown to have been
based on the phenomenon of ten months' sunshine. Is there
any legend of Sûrya in the Ṛig-Veda, which refers to this
phenomenon?—is the question we have now to consider. The
statement that ten horses are yoked to the carriage of the sun
has been shewn to point out to a period of ten months'
sunshine; but the legend of Indra's stealing the wheel of the
sun is still more explicit. To understand it properly we must,
however, first see in what relation Indra generally stands to
Sûrya. It has been shown in the last chapter, that Indra is
the chief hero in the fight between the powers of light and
darkness. It is he, who causes the sun to rise with the dawn,
or makes the sun to shine (VIII, 3, 6; VIII, 98, 2) and
mount the sky (I, 7, 3). The sun, it is further stated, (III, 39,
5), was dwelling in darkness, where Indra, accompanied by the
Dashagvas found him and brought him up for man. It is
Indra again who makes a path for the sun (X, III, 3), and
fights with the demons of darkness in order to gain back the
light of the morning. In short, Indra is everywhere described
as a friend and helper of Sûrya, and yet the Ṛig-Veda men-
tions a legend in which Indra is said to have taken away or
stolen the wheel of Sûrya and thus vanquished him (I, 175, 4;
IV, 30, 4; V, 31, 11; X, 43, 5). It has been supposed that the
legend may refer either to the obscuration of the sun by a
storm-cloud, or to his diurnal setting; but the former is too un-
certain an event to be made the basis of a legend like the pre-
sent, nor can a cloud be said to be brought on by Indra, while
we have no authority to assume, as presupposed in the latter
case, that the legend refers to the daily setting of the sun.
We must, therefore, examine the legend a little more closely,
and see if we can explain it in a more intelligible way. Now