Page 140 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

~IBHUS AND V~JSHAKAPI 125

as in Sk. shvim, Gk. kuon and the medial kr to pr by labialisation,
.:f. Gk. priamai, Sk. kri-'Jami, I purchaSe. As Venus was supposed
to be a feminine deity in Europe Kupros was naturally changed
into Kupris. Thus, both the Latin and the Greek names of the
Jeity may be traced back to the Vedic Vena and Shukra, and we
may therefore hold that the planet was discovered and named
before these races separated. I know that European lexioologists
derive Kupris from Kupros the Greek name of the island of Cyprus
where Venus was said to be much worshipped and that Cyprus
again is supposed to have received its name from the trees,
cypresses, in which it abounds ! But the explanation, which gives
no derivation for the name of the tree, seems to me to be quite
unsatisfactory. If Aphrodite was known to the Greeks in the
primitive times it is more natural to derive the name of the island
from the name of the deity. In course of time this original
.connection between the name of the deity and that of the island
may have been forgotten, and Greek writers regarded Kupris as
.born in Cyprus. But we must receive these derivations of Greek
mythological proper names with great caution as most of them
have been suggested at a time when comparative Philology and
comparative Mythology were unknown. Latin cuprum meaning
' copper ' is again said to be derived from Cyprus ( Gk. Kupros ),
but it does not affect our argument, for whatever be the reason
for giving the name to the island, once it was named Cyprus or
Kupros, many other words may be derived from it without any
reference to the reasons for which the island was so called.
Some of the reasons given above may be doubtful, but on
the whole I am inclined to hold that the Vedic ~it his were not
as ignorant of the broad astro'l.omical facts as they are sometimes
represented to be. They seem to have watched and observed the
sun and the moon during their yearly course, noted the bearing
of the motions on the division of time, fixed the length of the
solar year and endeavoured to make the lunar correspond with
it. The Nakthatras and their rising and setting also appear to have
been duly observed. It was perceived that the sun and the moon
and such of the planets as they had discovered never travelled
out of a certain belt ~ the heavens, called rita; while the eclipses
of the sun and the moon also ·received due attention and notice.
Men, who were acquainted with the8e facts; would naturally be
.able to fix the beginning of ·the months and the year by the