Page 290 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE VEDIC DAWNS 77

0 Varu~a! direct that we may be alive during them.*" The first part
of this verse contains a prayer usually addressed to Gods, and
we have nothing to say with respect to it, so far as the subject in
hand is concerned. The only expression necessary to be discussed
is bht1yas£1} u~hiisal} avyu~h{al} in the third quarter of the verse. The
first two words present no difficulty. They mean " many dawns. "
Now avyu~h(a is a negative participle from vyu~h{a, which again is
derived from u~hta with vi prefixed. I have referred to the dis-
tinction between u~has and vyu~h{i suggested by the threefold
or the five-fold division of the dawn. Vyu~hU, according to
the Taittil]ya Bnlhma~a, means " day, " or rather "the flashing
forth of the dawn into sunrise" and the word a+v£+u~h(a, there-
fore, means " not-fully-flashed-forth 1nto sunrise. " But Saya~a
and others do not seem to have kept in view this distinction
between the meanings of u~has and vyu~h(i, or if they did, they
did not know or had not in their mind the phenomenon of the
long continuous dawn in the Arctic regions, a dawn, that lasted
for several day-long periods of time before the sun's orb appeared
on the horizon. The expression, bhUyas.IJ u~hdsaf:i avyu~h(al.z, which
literally means " many dawns have not dawned, or fully flashed
forth, " was therefore a riddle to these commentators. Every dawn,
they saw, was followed by sunrise; and they could not, therefore
understand how 'many dawns' could be described as " not-fully-
flashed-forth. " An explanation was thus felt to be a necessity
and this was obtained by converting, in sense, the past passive
participle avyu~h(a into a future participle; and the expression in
question was translated as meaning, " during the dawns ( or days )
that have not yet dawned" or, in other words, "in days to come."
But the interpretation is on the face of it strained and artificial.
If future days were intended, the idea could have been more
easily and briefly expressed. The poet is evidently speaking of
things present, and, taking vi-u~h{a to denote what it literally
signifies, we can easily and naturally interpret the expression to
mean that though many dawns, meaning many day-long portions
of time during which the dawn lasted, have passed, yet it is not
vyu~h(a that is the sun's orb has not yet emerged from below the

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