Page 392 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE COWS' WALK 177
shine, one month's dawn, one month's evening twilight and
three months' long continuous night.
There are other considerations which point out to the same
conclusion. In the post-Vedic literature we have a persistent tradi-
tion that Indra alone of all gods is the master of a hundred
sacrifices ( shata-kratu ), and that as this attribute formed, so to
say, the very essence of Indraship, he always jealously watched
all possible encroachments against it. But European scholars
relying upon the fact that even Sayapa prefers, except in a few
places (III, 51, 2) to interpret shata-kratu, as applied to Indra
in the ~ig-Veda, as meaning, not 'the master of a hundred
sacrifices,' but ' the lord of a hundred mights or powers,' have
not only put aside the Purapic tradition, but declined to interpret
the word kratu in the ~ig-Veda except in the sense of' power,
energy, skill, wisdom, or generally speaking, the power of body
or mind.' But if the above explanation of the origin of the night-
sacrifices is correct, we must retrace our steps and acknowledge
that the Punlp.ic tradition or legend is, after all, not built upon
a pure misunderstanding of the original meaning of the epithet
shata-kratu as applied to Indra in the Vedic literature. I am
aware of the fact that traditions in the post-Vedic literature are
often found to have but a slender basis in the Vedas, but in
the present case we have something more reliable and tangible
to go upon. We have a group, an isolated group of a hundred
nightly Soma sacrifices and as long as it stands unexplained in
the Vedic sacrificial literature it would be unreasonable to decline
to connect it with the Purap.ic tradition of Indra's sole mast-
ership of a hundred sacrifices, especially when in the light of the
Arctic theory the two can be so well and intelligibly connected.
The hundred sacrifices, which are regarded as constituting the
essence of Indraship in the Purap..as, are there said to be the
Ashavmedha sacrifices; and it may, at the outset, be urged that
the shata-rdtra sacrifice mentioned in the sacrificial works is
not an Ashvamedha sacrifice. But the distinction is neither
important, nor material. The Ashvmedha sacrifice is a Soma
sacrifice and is described in the sacrificial works along with the
night-sacrifices. In the Taittiriya Sailhita ( VII, 2, 11 ) a hundred
offerings of food to be made in the Ashvamedha sacrifice are
mentioned, and the Taittirtya Brahmap.a (III, 8, 15, 1 ) states
that Prajapati obtained these offerings " during the night, "
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