The Arctic home in the Vedas : being also a new key to the interpretation of many Vedic texts and legends / by Bâl Gangâdhar Tilak.

  • Tilak, Bal Gangadhar, 1856-1920.
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The Arctic home in the Vedas : being also a new key to the interpretation of many Vedic texts and legends / by Bâl Gangâdhar Tilak. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    159/550 (page 123)
    LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT. dependent evidence about the long night —Vritra living in long darkness —Expressions denoting long darkness or long night —Anxiety to reach the end of darkness —Prayers to reach safely the other end of night —A night, the other boundary of which was not known according to the Atharva Veda—The Taittiriya Samhita explains that these prayers were due to fears entertained by the ancient priests that the night would not dawn —Not caused by long winter nights as sup- posed by Sayana —Description of days and nights in the Big-Veda —Divided into two typical pairs —One described as bright, dark and viriipe—Virupe means 'of varying lengths' and not ‘of various colours' —Second pair, Aham, different from the first —Durations of days and nights on the globe examined —Ahant can only be a couple of the long Arctic day and night —Described as forming the right and left, or op- posite, sides of the Year in the Taittiriya A'ranyaka —The sun is described in the Rig-Veda as unyoking his car in the midst of the sky —And thereby retaliating Ddsa’s mischief —Represents the long day and the long night —Summary of evidence regarding long day and long night —Ushas and Surya as Dakshind and Dakshin&’s son —Probably imply the southerly course of both. When a long continuous dawn of thirty days, or a )sely-gathered band of thirty dawns, ‘is shown to have en expressly referred to in the Vedic literature, the Qg night preceding such a dawn follows as a matter course ; and where a long night prevails, it must have long day to match it during the year. The remain- g portion of the year, after deducting the period of the Qg night, the long day and the long morning and evening blights, would also he characterised by a succession of dinary days and nights, a day and night together never Lceeding twenty-four hours, though, within that limit, the