Page 398 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE COWS' WALK 183
above regarding the origin of the Shata-rdtra sacrifice. Neither
Darmesteter nor Spiegel explains why the appointed time for the
appearance of Tishtrya is described as " one night, or two nights
or fifty or a hundred nights," though both translate the original in
the same way. The legend also forms the subject of chapter VII
of the Bundahish, but there, too, we find no explanation as to why
the appointed time is described as varying from one to a hundred
nights. It is, however, suggested by some that the appointed time
may refer to the season of rains. But rains cannot be said to come
after " one night, two nights, or fifty, or a hundred nights", and
the latter expression would therefore, be utterly inappropriate in
their case; nor, as stated above, does Tishtrya's fight with Apaosha
represent only a struggle for rain, since we know that it is a struggle
for light as well. We have also seen that the existence of night-
sacrifices in the Vedic literature, extending over one, two, three,
or ten, or a hundred nights, indicates the long darkness during
which Indra fought with Vala; and the coincidence between this
fact and the " appointed time ", of Tishtrya cannot be regarded as
accidental. The legends are undoubtedly identical in character,
and taking the one to illustrate the other, the only conclusion de-
ducible from them is that a hundred nights was regarded to be the
maximum duration of the fight between Indra and Vala, or Tishtrya
and Apaosha, so far as the ancestors of the Indo-Iranian people
were concerned, and that the sea Vouru-Kasha, or the ocean
' encompassed with darkness ,' as the ~ig-Veda has it (II, 23,
18 ), was the scene of this battle between the powers of light and
darkness. We also learn from them that the hero of the battle,
whether he was Indra or Tishtrya, stood in need of help derived
from the performance of the sacrifices specially offered to him
during the period; and that as a matter of fact such-sacrifices were
performed in ancient times. The word shata-kratu does not occur
in the Avesta, but in the Ashi Yasht ( Yt. XVII, 56) " a ram of
hundred-fold energy ( maeshahe satokarahe) is spoken of; and
considering the fact that in the Baliram Yashr ( Yt. XIV, 23 ) " a
beautiful ram, with horns bent round " is said to be one of the
incarnations of Verethraghna, and that Indra is also described as
appearing in the form of a ram in the ~ig-Veda (VIII, 2, 40 ), it
is very probable that the phrase sato-karahe maeshahe refers to
Verethraghna in the Ashi Yasht, and like the epithet shata-kratu,
he adjective sato-karahe means not" possessed of hundred powers,l''