Page 316 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

CHAPTER VI
LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT

Independent evidence about the long night-Vritra liYing in long
darkness-Expressions denoting long darkness or long night-Anxiety
to reach the end of darkness-P1ayers to reach safely the other tnd of
night-A night, the other boundary of which was not k11own according
to the .-\thurva Veda-The Taittiriya Samhita explains that these
prayers were due to fears entertained by the ancient priests that the
night would not dawn-Not caused by long winter nights as supposed
by Sayat;~a-Description of days and nights in the ~ig-Veda-Divided
into two typical pairs-One described as bright, dark and vi1'1ije- Vinipe
means ' of varying lengths' and not ' of various colours '-Second
pair, Alznni, different from the first-Duration of days and nights on
the globe examined-Ahani can only be a couple of the long Arctic day
and night-Described as forming the right and left, or the opposite sides
of the Y tar m the Taittir iya Arat;~yaka-The sun is described in the ~ig­
Veda as unyoking his car in the midst of the sky-And thereby retaliat-
ing Dfisa's mischief-Represents the long day and long night-Summary
of evidence regarding long day and long night-V~has and Stirya as
Dak~hi11; and Dak)hina's son-Probably impl~- the southerly course of
both .

WHEN a long continuous dawn of thirty days, or a closely
gathered band of thirty dawns, is shown to have been expressly
referred to in the Vedic literature, the long night preceding such a
dawn follows as a matter of course; and where a long night pre~
vails, it must have a long day to match it during the year. The
remaining portion of the year, after deducting the period of the
long night, the long day and the long morning and evening twilights,
would also be characterised by a succession of ordinary days and
nights, a day and nighttogether never exceeding twenty-four hours,
though, within that limit, the day may gradually gain over the night
at one time and the night over the day at another, producing a
variety of ordinary days and nights of different lengths. All these
phenomena are so connected astronomically that if one of them is
established, the others follow as a matter of scientific inference,
Therefore, if the long duration of the Vedic dawn is once demon~
strated, it is, astronomically speaking, unnecessary to search for
further evidence regarding the existence of long days and nights
in the l;{ig-Veda. But as we are dealing with a state of things,