Page 432 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

VEDIC MYTHS-THE CAPTIVE WATERS 213
different rajas are also mentioned in the ~ig-Veda (I, 164, 6 ). We
can, therefore, suppose that there were three rajas above the earth
and three below it, and so meet the apparent difficulty pointed
out by Wallis. The three raJas' can in some places be also interpreted
to mean the earthly rajas, the one above the earth and the one
below it, ( X, 82, 4 ). In I, 35, 2, the Savit~i is described as moving
through the dark rajas ( kri~h'f}ena rajasd ), and in the next verse
we are told that he comes from the distant (pautvat) region, which
shows that the dark rajas and the pardvat region are synonymous
and that the sun ascends the sky after passing through the dark
rajas. Again the use of the word 'ascend' ( ud-yan or udacharat
I, 163, 1; VII, 55, 7 ), to describe the rising of the sun in the
morning from the ocean, shows, by contrast, that the ocean which
the sun is said to enter at the time of setting (X, 114, 4) is really,
an ocean underneath the earth. In I, 117, 6, the sun is described
as sleeping in " the lap of Nir-riti, " and " dwelling in darkness ";
while in I, 164, 32 and 33, the sun is said to have travelled in the
4lterior of heaven and earth and finally gone into Nir-riti, or
as Prof. Max Muller renders it, " the exodus in the west." Now,
in X, 114, 2, there are three Nir-ritis mentioned, evidently corres-
ponding to the three earths and three heavens; and in X, 161,
2, the lap of Nir-riti is identified with the region of death. Pururavas
is again said (X, 95, 14) to have gone to the distant region
( param para vat am) and there made his bed on the lap of Nir-
riti, while the Maruts are described as mounting up to the firmament
from the bottomless Nir-riti, in VII , 58 , I. All these passages
taken together show that Nir-riti, or the land of dissolution and
Q_eath, commenced in the west, that the sun lying in darkness
travelled through the distant region ( pardvat) and eventually
rose in the east from the lap of Nir-riti, and that the whole of
this movement was placed not in the upper heaven, but on the
other side of the vault through which the sun travelled before he
entered into Nir-riti. In other words, the Nir-ritis extended below
the earth from west to east; and since the region below the three
earths is expressly mentioned in the ~ig-Veda the three Nir-ritis must
be understood to mean the three regions below the earth corres-
ponding to the three-fold division of the earth or of the heaven
above it. Zimmer is, therefore, correct in stating that the s~
moved through the rajas below the earth during night and that
~h~ Vedic poets knew of this nether rajas . .