Page 284 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE VEDIC DAWNS 71

The first quarter of the verse is rather difficult. The words
are kiydti d yat samaya bhavdti, and Saya?a, whom Wilson follows,
understands samayd to mean ' near'. Prof. Max Muller translates
samaya ( Gr. Omos, Lat. Simul), by "together", "at once" while
Roth, Grassmann and Aufrecht take samayd bhavdti as one
expression meaning " that which intervenes between the two. "*
This has given rise to three different translations of the verse :-
Wilson, (following Sayapa) : 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, U~has pursues the function 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 long-
ing and goes forth gladly shining with the others.
Muir, ( following Aufrecht ) :- How great is the interval
that lies between the Dawns which have arisen and those which
are yet to rise ? U~has yearns longingly after the former Dawns,
and gladly goes on shining with the others ( that are to come ).
But in spite of those 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 alongperiod 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 intervened 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 descrip-
tion 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,

• See Petersberg Lexicon, and Grassmann's \Vortcrbuch, s. \".
S,I1JMY,J.· and Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts, Vol. V, p. 189.