Page 294 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE VEDIC DAWNS 81

forth in various forms, is but one in reality. Throughout the whole
Anuwika there is no mention of the ri ing of the sun or the appear-
ance of sunlight, and the Brahma~za makes the point clear by
stating, " There was a time, when all this was neither day oor night,
being in an undistinguishable state. It was then that the Gods
perceived these dawns and laid them down, then there was light;
therefore, h brightens to him and destroys his darkness for whom
these ( dawn-bricks ) are placed. " The object of this passage is to
explain how and why the dawn-bricks came to be laid down with
these Mantras, and it give the ancient story of thirty dawns being
perceived by the Gods, not on con ecutive days, but during the
period of time when it was neither night nor day. This, joined with
the express statement at the end of the Anuvaka that in reality it is
but one dawn, is sufficient to prove that the thirty dawns mentioned
in the Anuwika were continuous and not consecutive. But, if a still
more explicit authority be needed it will be found in the Taittiriya
BrahmaJla, 11, 5, 6, 5. This is an old Mantra, and not a portion
of the explanatory Brahmal}a and is therefore, as good an autho-
rity a any of the verses quoted above. It is add res ed to the dawns
and means, " These very Dawns are those that first shone forth,
the Goddesses . make five forms; eternal ( shashvat£!1 ), (they )
are not separated ( na avaprijyanti ), nor do (they) terminate
( na gamanti antam )."• The 'five forms' here referred to cor-
re pond with the division of 30 dawns into 5 groups of 6 each, made
in the Taittirtya SambitA, after the manner of sacrificial ~ha!,-ahas,
or groups of six days; and we are expressly told that the dawns,
which make these 5 forms, are continuous, unseparated, or unin-
terrupted. In the ~ig-Veda I, 152, 4, the garment of the lover of
the dawns (lit. the maidens, kaninam jar am ) is described as ' in-
separable ' and 'wide' ( an-avaprigT}a and vitata ), and reading
this in the light of the aforesaid Mantra from the Taittiriya Brah-
ma:p.a we are led to conclude that in the Rig-Veda itself the dawny
garment. of the sun, or the garment, -which the dawns, as mothers,
weave for him (cf. V, 47, 6), is considered as 'wide' and' conti-
nuous.' Translated into common language this means that the
dawn described in the Rig-Veda was a long and continuous phe-
nomenon. In the Atharva-Veda (VII, 22, 2) the dawns are des-
• Taitt. Br. II, 5, 6, 5-~ t~;~ ffi '3lffif ll'T ~~~ o~.11~.~ fff 't»l
~~~ 1f-q ~ I ~!IRI'Iiff~liRr if ~~~ II
A. 6