Page 332 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

LONG DAY AND LONG NIGHT 117
hymn as referring to the victory of the Aryan over the non-
Aryan race. There is again the word Pratimdna ( lit. counter-
measure ), which denotes that what has been done is by way of
retaliation, a sort of counter-poise or counter blast, with a view
to avenge the mischief done by Ddsa. A battle between the
Aryans and the non-Aryans cannot be so described unless a
previous defeat of the Aryans is first alluded to. The plain mean-
ing of the verse, therefore, is that the sun was made to halt in
the midst of the sky, producing a long day, and Jndra thus found
a counter-poise for Ddsa his enemy. For we know that darkness
is brought on by the Ddsa, and it is he who brings on the long
night; but if the Dasa made the night long, Indra retaliated or
coumer-acted by making the day as long as the night of the Dasa.
The long night of the Arctic regions is, we have seen matched
by the long day in those regions, and the present verse expresses
the same idea of matching the one by the other. There is no re-
ference to the victory of the Aryan race over the non-Aryans,
or anything of that kind as supposed by Western scholars. Saya~a,
who had n<' historic theories to mislead him, has rightly inter-
preted Arya and Ddsa in this verse as referring to Indra and his
enemy; but he, in his turn, has misinterpreted as shewn above,
the first half of the verse in regard to the sun's long halt in the
midst of the sky. The misinterpretation of the second hemistich
comes from Western scholars, like, Muir who interprets Arya
as meaning the Aryans and Ddsa, the non-Aryans. This shows
how in the absence of the true key to the meaning of a passage,
we may be led away by current theories, even where the words
are plain and simple in themselves.
We thus see that the ~ig-Veda speaks of two different couples
of Day and Night, one alone of which represents the ordinary
days and nights in the year and the second, the Ahan£, is a distinct
couple by itself, forming, according to the Taittrtya Arat~yaka'
the right and left hand side of the Year, indicating the long Arctic
day and night. The Taittiriya Samhita again gives us in clear terms
a tradition that in the former age the night was so long that men
were afraid it would not dawn. We have also a number of expres-
sions in the E.ig-Veda denoting ' long nights ' or ' long and ghastly
darkness ' and also 'long journey ' of the sun. Prayers are also
offered to Vedic deities to enable the worshipper to reach safely
the end of the night, the " oth~r boun<b.ry of which is not known . "