Page 393 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

178 SAMAGRA TILAK - 2 • THE ARCTIC HOME

and consequently they are called Rdtri-homas. The duration ot
the Ashvamedha sacrifice is again not fixed, inasmuch as if
depends upon the return of the horse and in the ~ig-Veoa ( J,
163, 1 ) the sacrificial horse is identified with the sun moving in
gwaters. The return of the sacrificial horse may, therefore, be taken
to symbolise the return of the sun after the long night and a close
resemblance between the Ashvamedha and the night-sacrifices.
which were performed to enable Indra to fight with Vala and
rescue the dawn and the sun from his clutches, may thus be taken
as established. At any rate, we need not be surprised if the Shata.
rritra Soma sacrifice appears in the form of a hundred Ashva-
medha sacrifices in the Punlr,as. The tradition is substantially the
same in either case and when it can be so easily and naturally
explained on the Arctic theory, it would not be reasonable to
set it aside and hold that the writers of the Pura~as created it
by misinterpreting the word Shata-kratu occurring in the Vedas.
We have seen that shata-kratu as applied to lndra is
interpreted by Western scholars and in many places even by
Saya:p.a himself, as meaning the lord of a hundred powers.
Sayarta now and then ( III, 51, 2; X, 103, 7) suggests or gives an
alternative explanation and makes Indra ' the master of a
hundred sacrifices '; but Western scholars have gone further and
discarded all other explanations except the one noted above
It is, therefore, necessary to examine the mfaning of this epithet
as used in the Rig-Veda, a little more closely in this place. If the
the numeral shata, which strictly denotes ' a hundred ', will have
to be taken as equivalent to 'many' or 'numerous' inasmuch as no
definite set of a hundred powers can be pointed out as specially
belonging to Indra. That the word shata may be so interpreted is
evident from the fact that adjectives like shata-nltha (I, 100, 12)
and shatam-uti (I, 102, 6; 130, 8 ), as applied to Indra in the ~ig­
Veda, are found in other places in the form of sahasra-nitha
(III, 60,7 ), and sahasram-uti ( l, 52,2 ). Again Indra's arrow is once
called shata-bradhna and also sahasra-pariJa in the same verse
(VIII, 77, 7); while Soma is represented as going in a hundred ways
( shata-yaman) in IX, 86, 16, and a few hymns after it is said to be
sahasra-ydman or going in a thousand ways (IX, 106, 5 ). Even the
adjective shata-manyu, which Sayapa interprets as meaning 'the
master of a hundred sacrifices ' in X, 103, 7, has its counterpart,