Page 357 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

142 SAMAGRA TlLAK- 2 • THE ARCIIC HOME

Shrut-ktli7Jam saprathas-taman
tva gird daivyam man~J.!hd yuga
Here ritavdnam ( righteous ), mahifham ( strong ), vishva-darshatam
( visible to all ), agtJim ( Agni, fire, ) shrut-kar~Jath ( attentive eared ),
saprathas-taman ( most widely-reaching ), tva ( thee ) and daivyam
( divine ) are all in the accusative case governed by dadhire ( placed ),
and describe the qualities of Agni. Janri~ (people) is the nomina-
tive and dadhire ( placed ) is the only verb in the text. Sumnaya
( for the welfare ) denotes the purpose for which the people placed
Agni in front ( puro ) and gird ( by praises ) is means by which
the favour of Agni, is to be secured. If we, therefore, leave out the
various adjectives of Agni, the verse means, " The people have
placed Agni ( as described) in front for their welfare, with praises. "
The only expression that remains is manu:~ha yuga, and it can go in
with the other words in a natural way only as an accusative of time.
The verse would then mean " The people have placed Agni ( as
described ), in front for their welfare, with praises, during human
ages. " But Griffith takes yuga to mean 'generations ', and supplying
a verb of his own, translates the last part of the verse thus :' 'Men's
generations magnify ( Agni) with praise-songs (gird). " This
shows what straits, we are reduced to if we once make up our
mind not to interpret manr..:.~hd yuga to mean ' a period of time ',
for the word 'magnify ' does not exist in the original. This verse
also occurs in the Vajasaneyi Samhita (XII, 111 ), and Mahidhara
there explains mdmqha yuga to mean 'human ages', or ' periods
of time 'such as fortnights. We have, therefore, at least two passages,
where manufhd yuga, must according to the recognised rules of
interpretation, be taken to mean ' periods of time, ' and not ' gene-
rations of men, ' unless we are prepared to give up the natural
construction of the sentence. There are no more passages in the
~ig-Veda where manufhd-yuga occurs in juxtapposition with words
like jand~ or martyam, so as to leave no option as regards the
meaning to be assigned to yuga. But if the meaning of a phrase
is once definitely determined even from a single passage, we can
safely understand the phrase in the same sense in other passages
provided the meaning does not conflict there with the context.
That is how the meaning of many a Vedic word has been deter-
mined by scholars like Yaska, and we are not venturing on a new
path in adopting the same process of reasoning in the present case.