Page 440 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

VEDIC MYTHS-THE CAPTIVE WATERS 221
In Yasna LXV ( Sp. LXIV), 6, the Fravashis, who had " borne
the water41 up stream from the nearest ones, ' are invoked to come
to the worshipper; and a little further on the waters are asked to
" rest still within their places whlle the Zaota ( Sans. Hota ) shall
offer, " evidently meaning that it is the sacriiice offered by the
invoking priest that eventually secures the release or the flow of
waters. There are other references to the flowing of waters ( Yt.
X, 61 ) in the Parsi criptures, but those cited above are suffident to
prove our point. The main difficulty in the rational ey:planation
of the V~itra legend was to connect the flow of waters with the
rising of the dawn, and the passage from the Farvardin Yasht
quoted above furnish us with a clue by which this connection
can be satisfactorily established.
There are two passages in the Vendidad, which give us the
period during which these aerial waters cea ed to flow, and it
is necessary to quote them here, inasmuch as they throw further
light on the circulation of aerial waters. It has been stated above
that according to Prof. Darmesteter these waters cea ed to flow
during winter, but the point is made perfectly clear in Fargards
V and Vill of the Vendidad, where Ahura Mazda declares how
the corpse of a person dying during winter is to be dealt with,
until it is finally disposed of according to the usual rites at the
end of the season. Thus in Fargard V, 10 ( 34 ), Ahura Mazda is
asked, " If the summer is passed and the winter has come, what
shall the worshipper of Mazda do ? " To which Ahura Mazda
answers, " In every house, in every borough they shall raise three
.Kotas for the dead , large enough not to strike the skull, or the
feet or the hands of the man, ... and they shall let the lifeless
body lie there for two nights, three nights or a month long, until the
birds begin to fly, the plants to grow, the floods to flow, and the
wind to dry up the waters from off the earth. And as soon as
the birds begin to fly, and the plants to grow, and the floods
to flow, and the wind to dry up the waters from off the earth,
then the worshipper of Mazda shall lay down the dead ( on the
Dakhma ), his eyes towards the sun. " I have referred to this passage
previously, but as the theory of the circulation of aerial waters
was not then explained, the discussion of the passage had to be
postponed. We now clearly see what is meant by the phrases like
'floods to flow' and ' plants to grow.' They are the same phrases
which are used in the Farvardin Yasht and are there connected