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

346 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
called the seven-slayer (sapta-han) with reference either to the
seven Dânus or demons (X, 120, 6,) or to the seven cities of
Vṛitra (I, 174, 2), in the seven-bottomed ocean (VIII, 40, 5).
Now if Indra is sapta-han on the seven-fold division, he may be
easily conceived as dasha-han, or the ten-slayer, on the ten-fold
method of division. The word dasha-han does not occur in the
Ṛig-Veda, but the fight with the ten kings (ayajyavaḥ dasha
râjânaḥ) practically amounts to the same thing. It has been
stated above that amongst Indra's enemies we have persons like
Dasha-mâya and Dashoṇi, who are obviously connected in some
way with the number ten. The ten gold-like kings mentioned
above again seem to represent the ten monthly sun-gods, and the
fact that they are said to be given to the sacrificers further
strengthens this view. One of Indra's proteges is, we further
know, described as Dasha-dyu, or shining ten-fold. If all these
facts are put together, we are naturally led to the conclusion that
like the seven Dânus or demons, the powers of darkness were
sometime conceived as ten-fold, and Indra's helping Sudâs in his
fight with the ten non-worshipping kings is nothing more than
the old story of the annual fight between light and darkness as
conceived by the inhabitants of a place where a summer of ten
months was followed by a long winter night of two months, or,
in other words which formed the land of the Dashagvas.
But our interest in this remarkable fight does not come
to an end with this explanation. For when we remember the
fact that the word king was not confined to the warrior class
in the Ṛig-Veda, and that in one place (I, 139, 7) it seems to
be actually applied to the Aṅgirases, the expressions ‘ten
golden kings’ and ‘ten sacrificers’ or ‘ten-fold Aṅgirases,’ or
‘the ten Dashagvas sacrificing for ten months’ become syn-
onymous phrases. Now Bṛihaspati was the chief of the Aṅgi-
rases, and as such may naturally be considered to be the repre-
sentative of them all; and we have seen that he is represented