Page 390 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

TI-lE COWS' WLAK 175
or squeezing the Soma, were performed during this period of
darkness.
Now what applies to the sacrifice of a single night may
well be extended to cases where sacrifices had to be performed
for two, three or more continuous nights. I have already shown
before that the ancient sacrificers completed their sacrificial
sessions in ten months, and a long night followed the comple-
tion of these sacrifices. What did the sacrificers do during this
long night ? They could not have slept all the time; and as a
matter of fact we know that the people in the extreme north of
Europe and Asia do not, even at present sleep during the whole
of the long night which occurs in their part of the globe. Paul
Du Chaillu, who has recently ( 1900) published an account of
his travels in The Land of the Long Night, informs us ( p. 75)
that although the sun went below the horizon for several days
in the Arctic regions, yet during the period " the Lapps could
tell from the stars whether it was night or day, for they were
accustomed to gauge time by the stars according to their
height above the horizon, just as we do at home with the sun. "
and what the Lapps do now, must have been done by the oldest
inhabitants of the circum-polar regions. It is, therefore, clear
that the ancient sacrificers of the Aryan race could not have
gone to sleep after sacrificing for ten months. Did they then sit
idle with their hands folded when Indra was fighting for them
with the powers of darkness ? They performed their sacrifices
·for ten months with a view to help Indra in his war with Vala;
and just at the time when Indra most needed the help of invi-
gorating songs and Soma libations, are we to suppose that these
sacrificers sat idle, gave up the sacrifices and left Indra to fight
with Vala alone and single-handed as best as he could ? The
whole theory of sacrifices negatives such a supposition. Therefore,
if the Arctic theory is true, and if the ancestor of the Vedic
Ri~his ever lived in a region where the darkness of the night
lasted for several days, ( a day being taken as a measure of time
equal to 24 hours ), we naturally expect to find a series of nightly
Soma sacrfices performed during the period, to help the gods
in their struggle with the demons of darkness; and as a matter
of fact, there are in the Vedic sacrificial literature, a number Of
sacrifices which, if we include the Ati-ratra in it, extend from one
to a hundred nights. The Mimani.sakas and even the authors of