Page 321 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

'.W6 SAMAGRA TILAK - 2 • THE ARCTIC HOME
.and show that he has dealt with this·important passage in an off-
-hand manner. It is well-known that the Taittirtya Samhita often
explains the Mantras, and this portion of the Samhita is called
Brahma~a, the whole of the Taittirtya Samhita being made up in
this way of Mantras and the Brahma~a, or prayers and their
-explanations-or ·commentary mixed up together. The statement
.regarding :the apprehensions of the priests aboutthe coming dawn,
tlierefore, falls under the -Brahma~a portion of the Samhita.
Now · the contents- of the Brahma~as are usually classified by,
Indian divines under the ten following heads* ( 1 ) Hetu or reason;
·( 2) Nirvachana, or etymological explanation; ( 3 ) Ninda or
censure; ( 4) Prashainsa, or praise; ( 5) Sainshaya, or doubt;
( 6 ) Vidhi, or the rule; ( 7 ) Parakriyd, 'or others' doings; ( & )
Pur.a·kalpa, or ancient rite or tradition; ( 9 ) VyavadhdratJa·
kalpana or determining the limitations; ( 10) Upamdna, an apt
-comparison or simile. saya~a in his introduction to the comm-
entary on the ~ig-Veda mentions the first nine of these, and as
·an illustration. of the eighth, Purakalpa, quotes the explanatory
.passage from the Taittirtya Samhita, I, 5, 7, 5, referred to above.
According to Saya~a the statement, " In former times the priests
were afraid that it would not dawn", therefore, comes under
Pura-kalpa, or ancient traditional history found in the Brahma~as.
It is no Arthavdda, that is, speculation or explanation put forth
. by the Brahma~a itself. This is evident from the word pura which
occurs in the Samhita text, and which shows that some piece of
ancient traditional information is here recorded. Now if this view
·is correct, a question naturally arises why should ordinary long
winter nights have caused such apprehensions in the minds of
the priests only ' in former times ', and why should the long dark-
ness cease to inspire the same fears in the minds of the present
generation. The long winter nights in the tropical and the tem-
perate zone are as long to-day as they were thousands of years
ago, and yet none of us, not even the most ignorant, feels any
misgiving about the dawn which puts an end to the darkness
of these long nights. It may, perhaps, be urged that in ancient
times the bards had not acquired the knowledge necessary to

• -These a_re. enumerated in the follow~ng verses -
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