Page 286 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE VEDIC DAWNS 73

I have followed S§.yap.a in splittingjdra-i1•a of Samhitd text into
jare +iva, and notjdral:z +iva as Shakala has done in the Pada text;
for jdre + il•a makes the simile more appropriate than if we were to
compare u~has with jdra{1. Literally rendered the verse, therefore,
means," Verily, many were those days which were aforetime at the
uprising of the sun, and about which, 0 Dawn ! thou wast seen
moving on, as towards a lover, and not like one (woman ) who
forsakes " I take pari with yatal:z, meaning that the dawn goes after
the days. Yata{z pari, thus construed, means' after which', or' about
which'. Saya~a takes pari with dadrik~he and Griffith renders
yata{z by ' since'. But these constructions do not materially alter the
meaning of the second half of the verse, though taking pari with
yata{z enables us to take the second line as au adjectival clause,
rendering the meaning more plain. In IV, 52, I, the Dawn is said to
shine after her sister ( svasu{z 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 Bhrigubhyaf:z
pari occurs, and is rendered by Grassmann as equivalent to' for the
sake of Bh#gus ', while Sayap.a paraphrases pari by parita{z 'round
about '. In the verse under consideration we can, therefore, take pari
with yata{z and understand the expression as meaning 'after, about or
around which (days).' It must al o be borne in mind that there must
be an expression to correspond with jdre in the simile and this we
get only if we construe yata{z 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'
( tani) is then followed by two relative clauses, yd prachinam etc., and
yata{z pari etc., The :first of these states that the days referred to in
the principal clause were those that 'preceded rising of the sun'.
But if the days preceded the rising of the sun, one might think
that they were pervaded with darknes . The poet therefore, fur-
ther 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 forsakes.' In short, the verse states in unmistakable
terms ( l ) that many days ( bahuldni ahdni) passed between the
appearance of the :fir t 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 vanish
rl