Page 380 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE COWS' WALK 161

" But what is important and settles the point is the fact
that these cows or oxen of the dawn or . of the rising sun occur
in other mythologies also and are there clearly meant for days.
They are numbered as 12 x 30, that is, the thirty days of the
12 lunar months. If Helios has 350 oxen and 350 sheep, that can
only refer to the days and to the nights of the year, and would
prove the knowledge of a year of 350 days before the Aryan
separation. "
Thus the cows in mythology are the days and nights, or
dawns, that are imprisoned by Pa~i, and not real living cows
with horns. Adopting this explanation ' and substituting these
metaphorical cows for gava{l in the Gavam-ayanam, it is not
difficult to see that underneath the strange story of cows holding
a sacrificial session for getting horns, there lies concealed the
remarkable ph~nomenon, that, released from the clutches of Pa~i,
these cows of days and nights walked on for ten months, the oldest
duration of the session known as Cows' walk. In plain language
this means, if it means anything, that the oldest Aryan year was
one of ten months followed by the long night, during which rhe
cows were again carried away by the powers of darkness. We
have seen that the oldest Roman year was of ten months, and
the A vesta, as will be shown later on, also speaks of ten
months' summer prevailing in the Airyana Vaejo before the
home was invaded by the evil spirit, who brought on ice and
severe winter in that place. A year of ten months with a long
night of two months may thus be taken to be known before the
Aryan separation, and the references to it in the Vedic literature
are neither isolated nor imaginary. They are the relics of ancient
history, which have been faithfully preserved in the sacrificial
literature of India, and if they were hitheto misunderstood it was
because rhe true key required for their solution was as yet un-
known.
But as stated in the previous chapter, a year in the circum-
polar region will always have a varying number of the months
of sunshine according to }attitude. Although, therefore, there
is sufficient evidence to establish the existence of a year of te1i
months, we cannot hold that it was the only year known in ancient
times. In fact we have seen that the legend of Aditi indicates
the existence of the seven months of sunshine; and a band of
thirty continuous dawns supports the same conclusion. But