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

THE NIGHT OF THE GODS. 79
idea traditionally inherited by all the branches of the Aryan
race, and, as it is distinctly Polar in character, it is alone
enough to establish the existence of an Arctic home. But
fortunately for us our edifice need not be erected on this
solitary pillar, as there is ample evidence in the Vedic liter-
ature which supports the Arctic theory by satisfying almost
all the Polar and Circum-Polar tests laid down in the last
chapter. The long revolving dawn is another peculiar
characteristic of the North Pole, and we shall see in the next
chapter that the Ṛig-Vedic account of the dawn is intelligible
only if we take it as referring to the Polar dawn.

CHAPTER V.
THE VEDIC DAWNS.
Dawn-hymns the most beautiful in the Rig-Veda—The Deity
fully described, unobscured by personification—First hints about
the long duration of dawn—Recitation of a thousand verses,
, or even the whole Rig-Veda, while the dawn lasts—Three or
five-fold division of the dawn—Both imply a long dawn—The
same inferred from the two words Ushas and Vyushti—Three
Rig-Vedic passages about long dawns, hitherto misunderstood,
discussed—Long interval of several days between the first
appearance of light and sunrise—Expressly mentioned in the
Rig-Veda, VII, 76, 3—Sâyana's explanation artificial and
unsatisfactory—Existence of many dawns before sunrise—
Reason why dawn is addressed in the plural in the Rig-Veda
—The plural address not honorific—Nor denotes dawns of
consecutive days—Proves a team of continuous dawns—The
last view confirmed by the Taittirîya Samhitâ, IV, 3, 11 —
Dawns as 30 sisters—Direct authority from the Taittrîya Brâh-
mana for holding that they were continuous or unseparated—
Sâyana's explanation of 30 dawns examined—Thirty dawns
described as thirty steps of a single dawn—Rotatory motion
of the dawn, like a wheel, directly mentioned in the Rig-Veda
—Their reaching the same appointed place day by day—All
indicate a team of thirty closely-gathered dawns—Results
summed up—Establish the Polar character of the Vedic
dawns—Possible variation in the duration of the Vedic dawn
—The legend of Indra shattering the Dawn's car explained—
Direct passages showing that the dawns so described were the
events of a former age—The Vedic Dawns Polar in character.
The Ṛig-Veda, we have seen, does not contain distinct
references to a day and a night of six months' duration,
though the deficiency is more than made up by parallel
passages from the Iranian scriptures. But in the case of
the dawn, the long continuous dawn with its revolving
splendours, which is the special characteristic of the North

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 81
Pole, there is fortunately no such difficulty. Uṣhas, or the God-
dess of Dawn, is an important and favourite Vedic deity, and is
celebrated in about twenty hymns of the Ṛig-Veda, and mention-
ed more than three hundred times, sometimes in the singular
and sometimes in the plural. These hymns, according to Muir,
are amongst the most beautiful,—if not the most beautiful,—in
the entire collection; and the deity, to which they are addressed,
is considered by Macdonell to be the most graceful creation of
Vedic poetry, there being no more charming figure in the descrip-
tive religious lyrics of any other literature*. In short, Uṣhas, or
the Goddess of Dawn, is described in the Ṛig-Veda hymns with
more than usual fulness, and what is still more important
for our purpose is that the physical character of the deity is not,
in the least, obscured by the description or the personification in
the hymns. Here, therefore, we have a fine opportunity of prov-
ing the validity of our theory, by showing, if possible, that the
oldest description of the dawn is really Polar in character. A
priori it does not look probable that the Vedic poets could have
gone into such raptures over the short-lived dawn of the tropical
or the temperate zone, or that so much anxiety about the
coming dawn should have been evinced, simply because the
Vedic bards had no electric light or candles to use during the
short night of less than 24 hours. But the dawn-hymns have not,
as yet, been examined from this stand-point. It seems to have
been tacitly assumed by all interpreters of the Vedas, Eastern and
Western, that the Uṣhas of the Ṛig-Veda can be no other than
the dawn with which we are familiar in the tropical or the tem-
perate zone. That Yâska and Sâyaṇa thought so is natural enough,
but even the Western scholars have taken the same view, probably

• See Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts, Vol. V. p. 181; and Mac-
  donell's Vedic Mythology, p. 46.
  11

82
THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
under the influence of the theory that the plateau of Central
Asia was the original home of the Aryan race. Therefore several
expressions in the dawn-hymns, which would have otherwise
suggested the inquiry regarding the physical or the astronomical
character of the Vedic dawn, have been either ignored, or some-
how explained away, by scholars, who could certainly have
thrown more light on the subject, had they not been under the
influence of the assumption mentioned above. It is with passages
like these that we are here chiefly concerned, and we shall pre-
sently see that if these are interpreted in a natural way, they
fully establish the Polar nature of the Vedic dawn.
The first hint, regarding the long duration of the Vedic
dawn, is obtained from the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa, IV, 7. Before
commencing the Gavâm-ayana sacrifice, there is a long recita-
tion of not less than a thousand verses, to be recited by the Hotṛi
priest. This Ashvina-shastra, as it is called, is addressed to Agni,
Uṣhas and Ashvins, which deities rule at the end of the night
and the commencement of the day. It is the longest recitation
to be recited by the Hotṛi, and the time for reciting it is after
midnight, when "the darkness of the night is about to be re-
lieved by the light of the dawn," (Nir. XII, 1; Ashv. Shr. Sûtra,
VI, 5, 8).* The same period of time is referred to also in the
Ṛig-Veda, VII, 67, 2 and 3. The shastra is so long, that the Hotṛi,
who has to recite it, is directed to refresh himself by drinking
beforehand melted butter after sacrificing thrice a little of it, (Ait.
Bṛ. IV, 7; Ashv. Shr. Sûtra, VI, 5, 3). "He ought to eat ghee,"
observes the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa, "before he commences repeat-
ing. Just as in this world a cart or a carriage goes well
if smeared (with oil),† thus his repeating proceeds well if he be

• Nir. XII, 1,—तयोः काल ऊर्ध्वमर्धरात्रात्प्रकाशीभावस्यानुविष्टंभम् ।
  † See Haug's Translation of Ait. Br., p. 270.

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 83
smeared with ghee (by eating it)." It is evident that if such a
recitation has to be finished before the rising of the sun, either
the Hotṛi must commence his task soon after midnight when it
is dark, or the duration of the dawn must then have been
sufficiently long to enable the priest to finish the recitation in
time, after commencing to recite it on the first appearance of
light on the horizon as directed. The first supposition is out of
the question, as it is expressly laid down that the shastra is not to
be recited until the darkness of the night is relieved by light.
So between the first appearance of light and the rise of the sun,
there must have been, in those days, time enough to recite the
long laudatory song of not less than a thousand verses. Nay, in
the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ ( II, 1, 10, 3) we are told that sometimes
the recitation of the shastra, though commenced at the proper
time, ended long before sunrise, and in that case, the Saṁhitâ
requires that a certain animal sacrifice should be performed.
Ashvalâyana directs that in such a case the recitation should
be continued up to sunrise by reciting other hymns (Ashv. S. S.
VI, 5, 8); while Âpastamba, (S. S. XIV, 1 and 2), after mention-
ing the sacrifice referred to in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, adds that
all the ten Mandalas of the Ṛig-Veda may be recited, if neces-
sary, in such a case.* It is evident from this that the actual
rising of the sun above the horizon was a phenomenon often de-
layed beyond expectation, in those days; and in several places
in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, (II, 1, 2, 4 ),† we are told that

• The Sûtras referred to are as follows:—Ashv. S. S. VI, 5, 8,
  प्रातरनुवाकन्वायेन तस्यैव समाम्नायस्य सहस्रावममोदेतेः शंसेत्। Âpastamba
  XIV, 1 & 2—यस्याश्विने शस्यमाने सूर्यो नाविर्भवति सौर्यं बहुरूपमाल-
  भेत ॥ १ ॥ सर्वा अपि दाशतयीरनुब्रूयात् ॥ २ ॥ The first of these two
  Sûtras is the reproduction of T. S. II, 1, 10, 3.
  † T. S. II, 1, 2, 4,—असावादित्यो न व्यरोचत तस्मै देवाः प्रायश्चित्ति-
  मैच्छन् । Cf. also T. S. II, 1, 4, 1.

84 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
the Devas had to perform a prāyaschitta because the sun did not
shine as expected.
Another indication of the long duration of the dawn is
furnished by the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, VII, 2, 20.* Seven oblations
are here mentioned, one to Uṣhas, one to Vyuṣhṭi, one to Udeshyat,
one to Udyat, one to Udita, one to Suvarga and one to Loka.
Five of these are evidently intended for the dawn in its five
forms. The Tatittirîya Brâhmaṇa (III, 8, 16, 4) explains the
first two, viz., to Uṣhas and Vyuṣhṭi, as referring to dawn and
sunrise, or rather to night and day, for according to the Brâhmaṇa,
“Uṣhas is night, and Vyuṣhṭi is day.”† But even though we may
accept this as correct, and take Uṣhas and Vyuṣhṭi to be the
representatives of night and day, because the former signalises the
end of the night and the latter the beginning of the day, still we
have to account for three oblations, viz., one to the dawn about to
rise (Udeshyat), one to the rising dawn (Udyat), and one to the
dawn that has risen (Uditâ), the first two of which are, according
to the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, to be offered before the rising of the
sun. Now the dawn in the tropical zone is so short that the
three-fold distinction between the dawn that is about to rise, the
dawn that is rising, and one that has risen or that is full-blown
(vi-uṣhṭi), is a distinction without a difference. We must, there-
fore, hold that the dawn, which admitted such manifold division
for the practical purpose of sacrifice, was a long dawn.

• T. S. VII, 2, 20,—उषसे स्वाहा व्युष्ट्यै स्वाहोदेष्यते स्वाहोद्यते
  स्वाहोदिताय स्वाहा सुवर्गाय स्वाहा लोकाय स्वाहा ।
  † Tait. Br. III, 8, 16, 4, explains the above passage as follows:—
  उषसे स्वाहा व्युष्ट्यै स्वाहेत्याह । रात्रिर्वा उषाः । अहर्व्युष्टिः । अहोरात्रे एवाव-
  रुन्धे । अथो अहोरात्रयोरेव प्रतितिष्ठति । ता यदुभयीँर्दिवा वा नक्तं वा जुहुयात्
  अहोरात्रे मोहयेत् । उषसे स्वाहा व्युष्ट्यै स्वाहोदेष्यते स्वाहोद्यते स्वाहेत्यनुदिते
  जुहोति । उदिताय स्वाहा सुवर्गाय स्वाहा लोकाय स्वाहेत्युदिते जुहोति ।

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 85
The three-fold division of the dawn does not seem to be
unknown to the poets of the Ṛig-Veda. For, in VIII, 41, 3,
Varuṇa's "dear ones are said to have prospered the three dawns
for him,"* and by the phrase tisraḥ dānuchitrāḥ in I, 174, 7,
'three dew-lighted' dawns appear to be referred to. There are other
passages in the Ṛig-Veda† where the dawn is asked not to delay,
or tarry long, lest it might be scorched like a thief by the sun
( V, 79, 9 ); and in II, 15, 6, the steeds of the dawn are said to
be 'slow' (ajavasaḥ), showing that the people were sometimes
tired to see the dawn lingering long on the horizon. But a still
more remarkable statement is found in I, 113, 13, where the poet
distinctly asserts,‡ "the Goddess Uṣhas dawned continually or
perpetually (shasvat) in former days (purā);" and the adjective
shashvat-tamā ( the most lasting ) is applied to the dawn in I, 118,
11. Again the very existence and use of two such words as uṣhas
and vi-uṣhṭi is, by itself, a proof of the long duration of the dawn;
for, if the dawn was brief, there was no practical necessity of
speaking of the full-blown state (vi+uṣhṭi) of the dawn as has
been done several times in the Ṛig-Veda. The expression, uṣhasaḥ
vi-uṣhṭau, occurs very often in the Ṛig-Veda, and it has been
translated by the phrase, " on the flashing forth of the dawn." But
no one seems to have raised the question why two separate
words, one of which is derived from the other simply by prefixing
the preposition vi, should be used in this connection. Words are
made to denote ideas, and if uṣhas and vi-uṣhṭi were not
required to denote two distinct phenomena, no one, especially

• Ṛig. VIII, 41, 3,—स क्षपः परि षस्वजे...तस्य वेनीरनु व्रतमुष-
  स्तिस्रो अवर्धयन् ।
  † Ṛig. V, 79, 9,—व्युच्छा दुहितर्दिवो मा चिरं तनुथा अपः । नेत्त्वा
  स्तेनं यथा रिपुं तपाति सूरो अर्चिषा ।
  ‡ Ṛig. I, 113, 13,—शश्वत्पुरोषा व्युवास देवी ।

86 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
in those early days, would have cared to use a phrase,
which, for all ordinary purposes, was superfluously cumbrous.
But these facts, howsoever suggestive, may not be regarded as
conclusive, and we shall, therefore, now turn to the more ex-
plicit passages in the hymns regarding the duration of the Vedic
dawn.
The first verse I would quote in this connection is Ṛig-Veda
I, 113, 10:—
Kiyâti â yat samayâ bhavâti
yâ vyûṣhur yâsh cha nûnaṁ vyuchhân ।
Anu pûrvâḥ kṛipate vâvashânâ
pradîdhyânâ joṣham anyâbhir eti ॥
The first quarter of the verse is rather difficult. The words
are kiyâti â yat samayâ bhavâti, and Sâyaṇa, whom Wilson follows,
understands samayâ to mean 'near'. Prof. Max Muller translates
samayâ (Gr. Omos, Lat. Simul,) by 'together', 'at once'; while
Roth, Grassmann and Aufrecht take samayâ bhavâti as one ex-
pression meaning 'that which intervenes between the two.'† This
has given rise to three different translations of the verse:—
WILSON, (following Sâyaṇa):--For how long a period is it
that the dawns have arisen? For how long a period will they
rise? Still desirous to bring us light, Uṣhas pursues the functions
of those that have gone before, and, shining brightly, proceeds
with the others (that are to follow).
GRIFFITH, (following Max Muller):--How long a time, and
they shall be together,—Dawns that have shone and Dawns to
shine hereafter? She yearns for former Dawns with eager
longing, and goes forth gladly shining with the others.

• Ṛig. I, 113, 10—कियात्या यत्समया भवाति या व्यूषुर्याश्च नूनं
  व्युच्छान् । अनु पूर्वाः कृपते वावशाना प्रदीध्याना जोषमन्याभिरेति ॥
  † See Petersberg Lexicon, and Grassmann's Worterbuch, s. v.
  Samayâ; and Muir's O. S. Texts, Vol. V., p. 189.

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 87
MUIR, (following Aufrecht) :—How great is the interval
that lies between the Dawns which have arisen, and those which
are yet to rise ? Uṣhas yearns longingly after the former Dawns,
and gladly goes on shining with the others (that are to come).
But in spite of these different renderings, the meaning of the
verse, so far as the question before us is concerned, can be easily
gathered. There are two sets of dawns, one of those that have
past, and the other of those that are yet to shine. If we adopt
Wilson's and Griffith's translations, the meaning is that these
two classes of dawns, taken together, occupy such a long period of
time as to raise the question,—How long they will be together?
In other words, the two classes of dawns, taken together, were
of such a long duration that men began to question as to when
they would terminate, or pass away. If, on the other hand, we
adopt Aufrecht's translation, a long period appears to have interve-
ned between the past and the coming dawns ; or, in other
words, there was a long break or hiatus in the regular sequence
of these dawns. In the first case, the description is only possible
if we suppose that the duration of the dawns was very long,
much longer than what we see in the temperate or the tropical
zone; while in the second, a long interval between the past and
the present dawns must be taken to refer to a long pause, or night,
occurring immediately before the second set of dawns com-
menced their new course,—a phenomenon which is possible
only in the Arctic regions. Thus whichever interpretation
we adopt—a long dawn, or a long night between the two sets of
dawns,—the description is intelligible, only if we take it to
refer to the Polar conditions previously mentioned. The
Vedic passages, discussed hereafter, seem, however, to support
Sâyaṇa's or Max Muller's view. A number of dawns is spoken

88 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
of, some past and some yet to come; and the two groups are
said to occupy a very long interval. That seems to be the real
meaning of the verse. But without laying much stress on any
particular meaning for the present, it is enough for our purpose
to show that, even adopting Aufrecht's rendering, we cannot
escape from the necessity of making the description refer to the
Polar conditions. The verse in question is the tenth in the
hymn, and it may be noticed that in the 13th verse of the same
hymn we are told that "in former days, perpetually (shashvat)
did the Goddess Uṣhas shine," clearly indicating that the Dawn,
in early days, lasted for a long time.
The following verse is, however, still more explicit, and
decisive on the point. The seventh Maṇḍala of the Ṛig-Veda
contains a number of dawn-hymns. In one of these (VII, 76), the
poet, after stating in the first two verses that the Dawns have
raised their banner on the horizon with their usual splendour,
expressly tells us, (verse 3), that a period of several days elapsed
between the first appearance of the dawn on the horizon and the
actual rising of the sun that followed it. As the verse* is very
important for our purpose, I give below the Pada text with an
interlineal word for word translation:—
Tâni it ahâni bahulâni âsan
Those verily days many were
yâ prâchînam ud-itâ sûryasya ।
which aforetime on the uprising of the sun
Yataḥ pari jâre-iva â-charantî
from which after towards a lover, like moving on
Ushaḥ dadṛikshe na punaḥ yatî-iva ॥
O Dawn! wast seen not again forsaking (woman), like
I have followed Sâyaṇa in splitting jâra-iva of
Saṁhitâ text into jâre+iva, and not jâraḥ+iva as Shâkala
—* Ṛig. VII, 76, 3,—तानीदहानि बहुलान्यसन् य्रा प्राचीनमुदिता सू-
र्यस्य । यतः परि जार इवाचरत्युषो ददृक्षे न पुनर्यतीव ॥

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 89
has done in the Pada text ; for jāre+iva makes the simile more
appropriate than if we were to compare uṣhas with jāraḥ. Liter-
ally rendered the verse, therefore, means, "Verily, many were
those days, which were aforetime at the uprising of the sun,
and about which, O Dawn ! thou wast seen moving on, as
towards a lover, and not like one (woman) who forsakes." I
take pari with yataḥ, meaning that the dawn goes after the
days. Yataḥ pari, thus construed, means 'after which,' or
'about which.' Sâyaṇa takes pari with dadṛikshe, and Griffith
renders yataḥ by 'since.' But these constructions do not materi-
ally alter the meaning of the second half of the verse, though
taking pari with yataḥ enables us to take the second line as an
adjectival clause, rendering the meaning more plain. In IV,
52, 1, the Dawn is said to shine after her sister (svasuḥ pari),
and pari, with an ablative, does not necessarily denote 'from'
in every case, but is used in various senses, as, for instance, in
III, 5, 10, where the phrase Bhṛigubhyaḥ pari occurs, and is
rendered by Grassmann as equivalent to 'for the sake of Bhṛi-
gus,' while Sâyaṇa paraphrases pari by paritaḥ 'round about.'
In the verse under consideration we can, therefore, take pari
with yataḥ, and understand the expression as meaning 'after,
about or around which (days).' It must also be borne in mind
that there must be an expression to correspond with jāre in the
simile, and this we get only if we construe yataḥ pari in the
way proposed above. If we now analyse the verse it will be
found to be made up of three clauses, one principal and two
adjectival. The principal statement asserts that those days
were many. The demonstrative 'those' (tāni) is then fol-
lowed by two relative clauses, yā prāchīnam &c., and yataḥ
pari &c. The first of these states that the days referred to
in the principal clause were those that 'preceded the rising
of the sun.' But if the days preceded the rising of the sun,

90 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
one might think that they were pervaded with darkness. The
poet, therefore, further adds, in the second relative clause,
that though these days were anterior to the rising of the sun,
yet they were such that 'the Dawn was seen to move after or
about them as after a lover, and not like a woman who for-
sakes.' In short, the verse states in unmistakable terms (1)
that many days (bahulâni ahâni) passed between the appearance
of the first morning beams and sunrise, and (2) that these days
were faithfully attended by the Dawn, meaning that the whole
period was one of continuous Dawn which never vanished
during the time. The words as they stand convey no other
meaning but this, and we have now to see how far it is intelli-
gible to us.
To the commentators the verse is a perfect puzzle. Thus
Sâyaṇa does not understand how the word 'days' (ahâni) can
be applied to a period of time anterior to sunrise; for, says he,
"The word day (ahaḥ) is used only to denote such a period
of time as 'is invested with the light of the Dawn.'"* Then,
again, he is obviously at a loss to understand how a number of
days can be said to have elapsed between the first beams of
the dawn and sunrise. These were serious difficulties for
Sâyaṇa, and the only way to get over them was to force an
unnatural sense upon the words, and make them yield some
intelligible meaning. This was no difficult task for Sâyaṇa.
The word ahâni, which means 'days,' was the only stumbling
block in his way, and instead of taking it in the sense in which
it is ordinarily used, without exception, everywhere in the
Ṛig-Veda, he went back to its root-meaning, and interpreted it
as equivalent to 'light' or 'splendour.' Ahan is derived from
the root ah (or philologically dah), 'to burn,' or 'shine,'
and Ahanâ meaning 'dawn' is derived from the same root.

• उषःप्रकाशयुक्तस्यैव कालस्याहःशब्दव्यवहारात ।

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 91
Etymologically ahâni may, therefore, mean splendours ; but the
question is whether it is so used anywhere, and why we should
here give up the ordinary meaning of the word. Sâyaṇa's answer
is given above. It is because the word 'day' (ahan) can, according
to him, be applied only to a period after sunrise and before sun-
set. But this reasoning is not sound, because in the Ṛig-Veda
VI, 9, 1, ahaḥ is applied to the dark as well as to the bright pe-
riod of time, for the verse says, “there is a dark day (ahaḥ) and
a bright day (ahaḥ).” This shows that the Vedic poets were in the
habit of using the word ahaḥ (day) to denote a period of time devoid
of the light of the sun.* Sâyaṇa knew this, and in his commentary
on I, 185, 4, he expressly says that the word ahaḥ may include
night. His real difficulty was different, viz., the impossibility of
supposing that a period of several days could have elapsed between
the first appearance of light and sunrise, and this difficulty seems to
have been experienced even by Western scholars. Thus Prof.
Ludwig materially adopts Sâyaṇa's view and interprets the verse
to mean that the splendours of the dawn were numerous, and that
they appear either before sunrise, or, if prâchînam be differently
interpreted 'in the east' at the rising of the sun. Roth and Grass-
mann seem to interpret prâchînam in the same way. Griffith
translates ahâni by 'mornings' and prâchînam by 'aforetime.' His
rendering of the verse runs thus:—“Great is, in truth, the number
of the mornings, which were aforetime at the sun's uprising; since
thou, O Dawn, hast been beheld repairing as to thy love, as
one no more to leave him.” But Griffith does not explain
* Ṛig. VI. 9, 1,—अहश्च कृष्णमहरर्जुनं च वि वर्तेते रजसी वेद्याभिः
Also cf. T. S. III, 3, 4, 1,—एतद्वा अहो रूपं यद्रात्रिः । Similarly in T. S.
VI, 3, 9, 1, the phrase शमहॊभ्याम् ( 1, 3, 9, 1 ) is thus explained:—
शमहोभ्यामिति निनयत्यहोरात्राभ्यामेव ।

92 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
what he understands by the expression, “a number of mornings
which were aforetime at the sun’s uprising.”
The case , is, therefore, reduced to this. The word ahan,
of which ahâni (days) is a plural form, can be ordinarily interpre-
ted to mean (1) a period of time between sunrise and sunset; (2) a
nycthemeron, as when we speak of 360 days of the year; or (3) a
measure of time to mark a period of 24 hours, irrespective of
the fact whether the sun is above or below the horizon, as when
we speak of the long Arctic night of 30 days. Are we then to
abandon all these meanings, and understand ahâni to mean ‘splen-
dours’ in the verse under consideration? The only difficulty is to
account for the interval of many, days between the appearance
of the banner of the Dawn on the horizon and the emergence of
the sun’s orb over it; and this difficulty vanishes if the description
be taken to refer to the dawn in the Polar or Circum-Polar
regions. That is the real key to the meaning of this and similar
other passages, which will be noted hereafter; and in its absence
a number of artificial devices have been made use of to make these
passages somehow intelligible to us. But now nothing of the kind
is necessary. As regards the word ‘days’ it has been observed
that we often speak ‘a night of several days,’ or ‘a night of several
months ’ when describing the Polar phenomena. In expressions like
these the word ‘day’ or ‘month’ simply denotes a measure of time
equivalent to ‘twenty-four hours,’ or ‘thirty days;’ and there is
nothing unusual in the exclamation of the Ṛig-Vedic poet that
“many were the days between the first beams of the dawn and
actual sunrise.” We have, also seen that, at the Pole, it is quite
possible to mark the periods of twenty-four hours by the rotations
of the celestial sphere or the circum-polar stars, and these
could be or rather must have been termed ‘days’ by the

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 93
inhabitants of the place. In the first chapter of the Old Testa-
ment we were told that God created the heaven and the earth
and also light "on the first day;" while the sun was created
on the fourth "to divide the day from the night and to rule the
day." Here the word 'day' is used to denote a period of time
even before the sun was created; and a fortiori, there can be no
impropriety in using it to denote a period of time before sun-
rise. We need not, therefore, affect a hypercritical spirit in exa-
mining the Vedic expression in question. If Sâyaṇa did it, it
was because he did not know as much about the Polar regions
as we now do. We have no such excuse, and must, therefore,
accept the meaning which follows from the natural construction
and reading of the sentence.
It is therefore clear that the verse in question (VII, 76, 3)
expressly describes a dawn continuously lasting for many days,
which is possible only in the Arctic regions. I have discussed the
passage at so much length because the history of its interpreta-
tion clearly shows how certain passages in the Ṛig-Veda, which
are unintelligible to us in spite of their simple diction, have been
treated by commentators, who know not what to make of them
if read in a natural way. But to proceed with the subject in hand,
we have seen that the Polar dawn could be divided into periods of
24 hours owing to the circuits it makes round the horizon. In such
a case we can very well speak of these divisions as so many day-
long dawns of 24 hours each, and state that so many of them are
past and so many are yet to come, as has been done in the verse
(I, 113, 10) discussed above. We may also say that so many
day-long dawns have passed, and yet the sun has not risen, as in
II, 28, 9, a verse addressed to Varuṇa, wherein the poet asks for
the following boon from the deity:—

94 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
Para ṛiṇâ sâvîr adha mat-kṛitâni
mâ aham râjan anya-kṛitena bhojam ।
Avyushṭâ in nu bhûyasîr ushâsa
â no jîvân Varuṇa tâsu shadhi ॥
Literally translated this means "Remove far the debts (sins)
incurred by me. May I not, O King ! be affected by others'
doings. Verily, many dawns (have) not fully (vi) flashed forth.
O Varuṇa ! direct that we may be alive during them."* The
first part of this verse contains a prayer usually addressed to
Gods, and we have nothing to say with respect to it, so far as the
subject in hand is concerned. The only expression necessary to
be discussed is bhûyasîh ushâsaḥ avyushṭâḥ in the third quarter of
the verse. The first two words present no difficulty. They mean
'many dawns.' Now avyushṭa is a negative participle from vyushṭa,
which again is derived from ushṭa with vi prefixed. I have refer-
red to the distinction between ushas and vyushṭi suggested by the
three-fold or the five-fold division of the dawn. Vyushṭi, according
to the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, means 'day,' or rather 'the flashing
forth of the dawn into sunrise' ; and the word a+vi+ushṭa,
therefore, means "not-fully-flashed-forth into sunrise." But
Sâyaṇa and others do not seem to have kept in view this distinc-
tion between the meanings of ushas and vyushṭi ; or if they did,
they did not know or had not in their mind the phenomenon of
the long continuous dawn in the Arctic regions, a dawn, that
lasted for several day-long periods of time before the sun's orb
appeared on the horizon. The expression, bhûyasîh ushâsaḥ
avyushṭâḥ, which literally means "many dawns have not dawned,
or fully flashed forth," was, therefore, a riddle to these com-
mentators. Every dawn, they saw, was followed by sunrise; and

• Ṛig. II, 28, 9,—पर ऋणा सावीरध मत्कृतानि माहं राजन्नन्यकृतेन
  भोजम् । अव्युष्टा इन्नु भूयसीरुषास आ नो जीवान्वरुण तासु शाधि ॥

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 95
they could not, therefore, understand how ‘many dawns’ could be
described as “not-fully-flashed-forth.” An explanation was thus
felt to be a necessity, and this was obtained by converting, in
sense, the past passive participle avyushṭa into a future participle;
and the expression in question was translated as meaning, “during
the dawns (or days) that have not yet dawned,” or, in other words,
“ in days to come.” But the interpretation is on the face of it
strained and artificial. If future days were intended, the idea
could have been more easily and briefly expressed. The poet is
evidently speaking of things present, and, taking vi-ushṭa to
denote what it literally signifies, we can easily and naturally
interpret the expression to mean that though many dawns, mean-
ing many day-long portions of time during which the dawn last-
ed, have passed, yet it is not vyushṭa, that is the sun's orb has
not yet emerged from below the horizon, and that Varuṇa should
protect the worshipper under the circumstances.
There are many other expressions in the Ṛig-Veda which
further strengthen the same view. Thus corresponding to bhūy-
asīḥ in the above passage, we have the adjective pūrvīḥ (many)
used in IV, 19, 8 and VI, 28, 1, to denote the number of the
dawns, evidently shewing that numerically more than one dawn
is intended. The dawns are again not unfrequently addressed
in the plural number in the Ṛig-Veda, and the fact is well-known
to all Vedic scholars. Thus in I, 92, which is a dawn-hymn,
the bard opens his song with the characteristically emphatic
exclamation, “these (etāḥ) are those (tyāḥ) dawns (ushasaḥ), which
have made their appearance on the horizon,” and the same ex-
pression again occurs in VII, 78, 3. Yâska explains the plural
number ushasaḥ by considering it to be used only honori-
fically (Nirukta XII, 7); while Sâyaṇa interprets it as re-
ferring to the number of divinities that preside over the.

96 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
morn. The Western scholars have not made any improve-
ment on these explanations; and Prof. Max Muller is simply
content with observing that the Vedic bards, when speaking of
the dawn, did sometimes use the plural just as we would use the
singular number! But a little reflection will show that neither
of these explanations is satisfactory. If the plural is honorific
why is it changed into singular only a few lines after in the
same hymn? Surely the poet does not mean to address the Dawn
respectfully only at the outset, and then change his manner of
address and assume a familiar tone. This is not, however, the
only objection to Yâska's explanation. Various similes are used
by the Vedic poets to describe the appearance of the Dawns on
the horizon, and an examination of these similes will convince
any one that the plural number, used in reference to the Dawn,
cannot be merely honorific. Thus in the second line of I, 92, 1,
the Dawns are compared to a number of 'warriors' (dhṛishṇavah),
and in the third verse of the same hymn they are likened to
'women (nārīḥ) active in their occupations.' They are said to
appear on the horizon like 'waves of waters' (apām na urmayha) in
VI, 64, 1; or like 'pillars planted at a sacrifice' (adhvareshu
svaravaḥ) in IV, 51, 2. We are again told that they work like
'men arrayed' (visho na yuktāḥ), or advance like 'troops of cattle'
(gavām na sargāḥ), in VII, 79, 2, and IV, 51, 8, respectively.
They are described as all 'alike' (sadṛiśhīḥ); and are said to be
of 'one mind' (sañjānanāse), or 'acting harmoniously' in IV, 51, 6,
and VII, 76, 5. In the last verse the poet again informs us that
they 'do not strive against each other' (mithah na yatante), though
they live jointly in the 'same enclosure' (samāne urve). Finally
in X, 88, 18, the poet distinctly asks the question, "How
many fires, how many suns and how many dawns (ushāsaḥ)
are there?" If the Dawn were addressed in plural simply

THE VEDIC DAWNS. 97
out of respect for the deity, where was the necessity of informing
us that they do not quarrel though collected in the same place ?
The expresssions 'waves of waters', or 'men arrayed' &c., are
again too definite to be explained away as honorific. Sâyaṇa
seems to have perceived this difficulty, and has, probably for the
same reason, proposed an explanation slightly different from that
of Yâska But, unfortunately, Sâyaṇa's explanation does not solve
the difficulty, as the question still remains, why the deities pre-
siding over the dawn should be more than one in number. The
only other explanation put forward, so far as I know, is that the
plural number refers to the dawns on successive days during the
year, as we perceive them in the temperate or the tropical zone.
On this theory there would be 360 dawns in a year, each followed
by the rising of the sun every day. This explanation may appear
plausible at the first sight. But on a closer examination it will
be found that the expressions used in the hymns cannot be made
to reconcile with this theory. For, if 360 dawns, all separated
by intervals of 24 hours, were intended by the plural number used
in the Vedic verses, no poet, with any propriety, would speak of
them as he does in I, 92, 1, by using the double pronoun etâḥ and
tyâḥ, as if he was pointing out to a physical phenomenon
before him; nor can we understand how 360 dawns, spread
over the whole year, can be described as advancing like 'men
arrayed' for battle. It is again absurd to describe the 360
dawns of the year as being collected in the 'same enclosure'
and 'not striving against or quarrelling with each other.' We
are thus forced to the conclusion that the Ṛig-Veda speaks
of a team or a group of dawns, unbroken or uninterrupted
by sunlight, so that if we be so minded, we can regard
them as constituting a single long continuous dawn. This
is in perfect accord with the statement discussed above, viz.,
13

98 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
that many days passed between the first appearance of light on
the horizon and the uprising of the sun (VII, 76, 3). We cannot,
therefore, accept the explanation of consecutive dawns, nor that of
Yâska, nor of Sâyaṇa regarding the use of the plural number in
this case. The fact is that the Vedic dawn represents one long
physical phenomenon which can be spoken of in plural by suppo-
sing it to be split up into smaller day-long portions. It is thus
that we find Uṣhas addressed sometimes in the plural, and some-
times in the singular number. There is no other explanation on
which we can account for and explain the various descriptions of
the dawn found in the different hymns.
But to clinch the matter, the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, IV, 3, 11,
expressly states that the dawns are thirty sisters, or, in other
words, they are thirty in number, and that they go round and round
in five groups, reaching the same appointed place and having the
same banner for all. The whole of this Anuvâka may be said to
be practically a dawn-hymn of 15 verses, which are used as Man-
tras for the laying down of certain emblematical bricks called the
'dawn-bricks' on the sacrificial altar. There are sixteen such
bricks to be placed on the altar, and the Anuvâka in question
gives 15 Mantras, or verses, to be used on the occasion, the 16th
being recorded elsewhere. These 15 verses, together with their
Brâhmaṇa (T. S., V, 3, 4, 7), are so important for our purpose
that I have appended to this chapter the original passages, with
their translation, comparing the version in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ
with that of the Atharva-Veda, in the case of those verses which
are found in the latter. The first verse of the section or the
Anuvâka, is used for laying down the first dawn-brick, and
it speaks only of a single dawn first appearing on the
horizon. In the second verse we have, however, a couple