Page 330 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

LONG DAY AliD LONG NIGHT

throw of their enemies. Both of these suggestions are, however
not satisfactory. During a solar eclipse the sun being temporarily
hidden by the moon is invisible wholly or partially and is not
besides stationary. The description that the sun unyoked his car
in the midheaven cannot, therefore, apply to the eclipsed sun.
As regards the other suggestion, viz. that the sun remained sta-
tionary for a while to allow his favourite race, the Aryans, to
overthrow their enemies, it seems to have bad its origin in the
Biblical passage ( Joshua, X, 12, 13 ), where the sun is said to
have stood still, at the word of Joshua, until the people bad
avenged themselves upon their enemies. But there is no autho-
rity for importing this Biblical idea into the ~ig-Veda. Indra's
exploits are described in a number of hymns in the ~ig-Veda,
but in no other hymn he is said to have made the sun stand still
for the Aryans. We must, therefore, reject both the explanations
suggested by Griffith. Sayar;Ja gets over the difficulty by interpret-
ing the phrase, ratham vi amuchat madhye diva!z, as meaning
that " the sun loosened ( vi amuchat ) his carriage, that is, set
it free to travel, towards the middle ( madhye ) of heaven,
( ratham prusthanaya vimuktavan ). " Sayal)a's meaning, there-
fore, is that when Indra obtained compensation from Vritra,
he let loose the chariot of the sun to travel towards the midst of
the sky. But the construction is evidently a strained one. The
verb vi much is used in about a dozen places in the ~ig-Veda in
relation to horses, and everywhere it means to ' unharness ',
'unyoke', or 'separate the horses from the carriage for rest •,
and even Sllya~a has interpreted it in the same way. Thus vi-
muchya is explained by him as rathiit vish/i~hya in I, 104, 1, and
rathat vi-muchya in m, 32, 1 and rathat visrijya in X, 160, 1,
(also compare I, 171, 1; I, 177, 4; VI, 40, 1 ). The most natural
meaning of the present verse would, therefore, be that the ' sun
unyoked his carriage. ' But even supposing that vi much can be
interpreted to mean ' to loosen for travel ', the expression would
be appropriate only when there is an antecedent stoppage or
slow motion of the sun. The question why the sun stopped or
slackened his motion in the midst of the sky would, therefore,
still remain unsolved. The phrase diva!z madhye naturally means
in the midst of the sky, and cannot be interpreted to mean
' towards the mid-heaven '. Of course if the sun was below the
horizon, we may describe him as having loosened his horses