Page 382 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE COWS' WALK 167
unless we refer it to the two additional months in a cycle of four
years. "
In the light of the Arctic theory the puzzle here referred to is
solved without any difficulty. The stealing away or the .carrying
off of the cows need not now be taken to mean simple wasting
of the days in the modern sense of the word; nor need we attribute
such stories to the " fancy of ancient bards and story-tellers. "
The legend or the tradition of stealing, consuming or carrying
off the cows or oxen is but another form of stating that so many
days were lost, being swallowed up in the long night that occurred
at the end of the year and lasted, according to latitude, for vary-
ing periods of time. So long as everything was to be explained
on the theory of a daily struggle between light and darkness,
these legends were unintelligible. But as soon as we adopt the
Arctic theory the whole difficulty vanishes and what was confused
and puzzling before becomes at once plain and comprehensible.
In the Vedic mythology cows are similarly said to be stolen by
Vritra or Vala, but their number is nowhere given, unless we
regard the story of Rijrashva ( the Red-horse ) slaughtering
100 or 101 sheep and giving them to a she-wolf to devour
(I, 116, 16; 117, 18 ), as a modification of the story of stealing
the cows. The Vedic sacrificial literature does, however, preserve
for us an important relic, besides the one above noted, of the
older calendar and especially the long night. But in this case
the relic is so deeply buried under the weight of later explana-
tions, adaptations, and emendations, that we must here exa-
mine at some length the history of the Soma sacrifices in order
to discover the original meaning of the rites which are includ-
ed under that general n\me. That the Soma sacrifice is
an ancient institution is amply proved by parallel rites in
the Parsi scriptures; and whatever doubt we may have regard-
ing the knowledge of Soma in the Indo-European period, as
the word is not found in the European languages, the system
of sacrifices can be clearly traced back to the primeval age. Of
this sacrificial system, the Soma sacrifice may, at any rate, be
safely taken as the oldest representative since it forms the main
feature of the ritual of the Rig-Veda and a whole Ma119a1a of
114 !lymns in the Rig-Veda is dedicated to the praise of Soma.
A careful analysis of the Soma sacrifice may, therefore, be ex-
pected to disclose at least partially, the nature of the oldest