Page 339 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

124 SAMAGRA TILAK 2 • THE ARCTIC HOME

or principal business transacted, and important, religious and
social ceremonies performed only during this period. It would,
so to say, be a period of action, as contrasted with the long night,
by which it was followed. The long dawn following the long night,
would mark the beginning of this period of activity; and the Arctic
sacrificial year would, l'ractically, be made up, only of these months
of sunshine. Therefore, the varying number of the months of
sunshine would be the chief peculiarity of the Arctic sacrificial
calendar, and we must bear it in mind in examining the traces of
the oldest calendar in the :Rig-Veda, or other Samhitas.
A dawn of thirty days, as we measure days, implies a position
so near the Noth Pole, that the period of sunshine at the place
could not have been longer than about seven months comprising,
of course, a long day of four or five months, and a succession of
regular days and nights during the remaining period; and we find
that the ~ig-Veda does preserve for us the memory of such months
of sunshine. We refer first to the legend of Aditi, or the seven
Adityas ( suns ), which is obviously based on some natural phenn-
menon. This legend expressly tells us that the oldest number of
Adityas or suns was seven, and the same idea is independently
found in many other places in the ~ig-Veda. Thus in IX, 114, 3
seven Adityas and seven priests are mentioned together, though the
names of the different suns are not given therein. In II, 27, 1, Mitra,
Aryaman, Bhaga, Varupa, J?ak~ha and Arilsha are mentioned by
name as so many different Adityas but the seventh is not named.
This omission does not, however, mean much, as the septenary
character of the sun is quite patent from the fact that he is called
saptashva ( seven-horsed) in V, 45, 9, and his ' seven-wheeled'
chariot is said to be drawn by ' seven bay steeds ' ( I, 50, 8 ), or
by a single horse ' with seven names ' in I, 164, 2. The Atharav
Veda also speaks of " the seven bright rays of the sun" (VII,
107, 1 ); and the epithet Aditya, as applied to the sun in the ~ig­
Veda, is rendered more clearly by Adite!z putra!z ( Aditi's son)
in A. V. XIII, 2, 9. Saya!la, following Yaska, derives this seven-
fold character of the sun from his seven rays, but why solar rays
were taken to be seven still remains unexplained, unless we hold
that the Vedic bards had anticipated the discovery of seven pris-
matic rays or colours, which were unknown even to Yaska or
Sayapa. Again though the existence of seven suns may be ex-