Page 397 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

182 SAMAGRA TILAK - 2 • THE ARCTIC HOME

Vritra. * Now, in the Tir Yasht, Tishtrya is represented as even-
tually overcoming Apaosha with the help of the Haoma sacrifice
offered to Tishtrya by Ahura Mazda (Yt. VIII, 15-25). The fight
is carried on in the region of the waters, the sea Vouru-Kasha,
from which Tishtrya is described as rising up victorious after
defeating Apaosha ( Yt. VIII, 32 ). Daeva Apaosha is again
said to have assumed the form of a dark horse, while Tishtrya is
represented a opposing him in the form of a bright horse, hoof
against hoof ( Yt. VIII, 28 ), and eventually coming up victorious
from out of the ea Vouru-Kasha, like the sacrificial horse rising
from the waters in the :Rig-Veda (I, 163, 1 ). But the passage
most important for our purpose is the one in which Tishtrya in-
forms Ahura Mazda as to what should be done in order to enable
Tishtrya to overcome his enemy and to appear before the faithful
at the appointed time. "If men would worship me", says Tishtrya
to Ahura Mazda, " with a sacrifice in which I were invoked by my
own name, as they worship the other Y azatas with sacrifices in
which they are invoked by their own names, then I should have
come to the faithful at the appointed time; I should have come in
the appointed time of my beautiful immortal life should it be one
night, or two nights, or fifty, or a hundred nights," ( Yt. VIII,
11 ). As Tishtrya appear before man after hi battle with Apaosha,
the phra e "appointed time ' signifie the time during which the
battle is fought and at the termination of which Tishtrya comes
to the faithful; and the passage, therefore, means ( 1 ) that the
" appointed time ", when Tishtrya wa to appear before man after
fighting with Apaosha varied from one night to a hundred nights
and ( 2) that Tishtrya required to be strengthened during the period
by Haoma sacrifices in which he was to be invoked by his own name.
We have seen above that a hundred nightly Sowa sacrifices were
offered to Indra by the ancient Vedic sacrificers to enable him to
secure a victory over Vritra and that Indra was the only deity to
whom the libations were offered in these scarifices. The legend
of Tishtrya and Apaosha is, therefore, an exact reproduction of
Indra's fight with Vritra or Vala; and with this correspondence
before us, we should feel no hesitation in accepting the view stated

• See Darmesteter's Trans. of Zend-Avesta Part II, (Vol. XXIII
S.B.E. Series), p. 92. He remarks thatTishtrya'slegendi.;'ar~facimm' 0
of the old storm-myths.'