Page 359 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

144 SAMAGRA TILAK - 2 • THE ARCTIC HOME

' first dawn ' at once enables us to definitely determine the length
or duration of' human ages '; for if these ages ( yugas ) commenced
with the first dawn of the year, they must have ended on the last
( a varna) dawn of the year. In other words manu~hd yuga collectively
denoted the whole period of time between the first and the lasJ
dawn of the year, while a single yuga denoted a shorter division of
this period.
Apart from the legend of Dirghatamas, we have, therefore,
sufficient evidence in the ~ig-Veda to hold that the world, yuga
was used to denote a period of time, shorter than one year, and
that the phrase manu.!]hd yugd meant ' human ages ' or • the period
of time between the first and the last dawn of year' and not' human
generations'. The statement that " Dtrghtamas grew old in the
tenth yuga is now not only easy to understand, but it enables us to
determine, still more definitely, the meaning of yuga in the days of
the ~ig-Veda. For if, yuga was a part of mdnu.~hd yuga, that is, of
the period between the first and the last dawn of the year, and the
legend of Dirghatamas a solar legend, the statement that " Dirgha·
tamas grew old in the tenth yuga " can only mean that '' the sun
grew old in the tenth month ". In other words, ten yugas were sup-
posed to intervene between the first and the last dawn, or the two
termini, of the year; and as ten days or ten fortnights would be too
short, and ten seasons too l~ng a period of time to lie between these
limits, the word yuga in the phrase dashame yuge, must be inter-
preted to mean ' a month ' and nothing else. In short, Dirghatamas
was the sun that grew old in the tenth month, and riding on the
aerial waters was borne by them to their goal, that is, to the ocean
( VII, 94, 2 ) below the horizon. The waters here referred to are
in fact, the same over which the king Varul)a is said to rule, or
which flow by his commands, or for which he is said to have dug
out a channel (VII, 49, 1-4; Il,28, 4; VII, 87, 1) and so cut out a
path for Surya, and which being released by Indra from the grasp
of Vritra, bring on the sun (I, 51, 4 ). Prof. Max Muller in his
Contributions to the Science of Mythology ( Vol. II, pp. 583- 598 ),
has shown that most of the achievements of the Ashvins can be
rationally explained by taking them as referring to the decaying
sun. The legend of Dirghatamas is thus only a mythical repre-
sentation of the Arctic sun, who ascends above the ' bright ocean '
( VII, 60, 4 ), becomes visible for manu~ha yuga or ten months,
and then drops again into the nether waters. What these waters