Page 285 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

72 SAMAGRA TILAK - 2 • THE ARCTIC HOME
or night, occurring immediately before the second set of dawns
commenced their new course,- a phenomenon which is possible,
only in the Arctic regions. Thus whichever interpreation we adopt-
a long dawn, or a long night between the 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 Saya~a's or Max Muller's
view. A number of dawns is spoken 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 adoptin~ Aufrecht's re'ldering,
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 ' shdshvat ..
did the Goddess U ~has shine, " clearly indicating that the Dawn•
n eali Jy days lasted for a long time.
-The following verse is, however, still more explicit, and
decisive on the point. The seventh Ma~dala of the ~ig-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 :-
Tdni it ahdni bahulani asan
Those verily days many were
ya prach£nam ud-ita siiryasya
which aforetime on the uprising of the sun
Yatal.z pari jare-iva a-charanti
from which after towards a lover like, moving on
U ~hal.z dadrik~he na pundl.z yati-iva.
0 Dawn wast seen not again forsaking ( woman ), like

* ].tig. VII, 76, 3-~ if~Ti'?$ ~T ~ ~~~ I
~: 'Ill{ ;;m: ~~~"'I" ~9 II