Page 442 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

VEDIC MYTHS-THE CAPTIVE WATERS 223
seen that the flowing of waters and the moving of the sun are
described as taking place at the same time. The passage from
Tir Yasht, where the appointed time for the appearance of
Tishtrya after conquering Apaosha in the watery regions is described
as one night, two nights, fifty or one hundred nights has already
been referred to in the last chapter. From all these passages taken
together, it inevitably follows that it was during winter that the
water ceased to flow, and the sun to move, and that the period of
stagnation lasted from one night to a hundred nights. It was a
period of long darkness, when the sun was not seen above the
horizon; and if a man died during the period, his corpse had to be
kept in the house until the waters again commenced to flow, and
the sun appeared on the horizon along with them. I have pointed
out previously how the Hindu belief that it is inauspicious to die
in the Dak~hi~ayap.a must be traced to this primeval practice of
keeping the dead body undisposed of during the long Arctic night.
The word Ka{a which is used for 'grave' in the Parsi scriptures
occurs once in the ~ig-Veda, I, 106, 6, where the sage Kutsa, lying
in Kd{a is described as invoking the Vritra-slaying Indra for his
protection; and I think that we have here, at least, an indirect
reference to the practice of keeping dead bodies in a Ka{a, until
V~itra was killed, and the waters and the sun made free to run their
usual course. We are, however, concerned here only with the circu-
lation of the celestial waters; and from the Avestic passage quoted
above, it is clear that the aerial waters ceased to flow during winter
for several days or rather nights, and that, since light sprang from
the same source as waters, the sun also ceased to move during the
period and stood still in the watery regions, until the Fravashis
who helped the gods in their struggle for waters or in their conflict
with powers of darkness, made the waters and the sun move on-
wards to take their usual course in the upper celestial hemisphere.
We can now understand why Indta is described as moving by his
might the stream upwards ( udancha) in II, 15, 6, and how the
rivers are said to be set free to move on ( sartave) by killing V~itra
( I, 32, 12 ), or how in I, 80, 5, Indra is said to have made the lights
of heaven shine forth without obstruction and set the waters
( apa/:J) free to flow ( sarmdya ). There are many other passages in
the Rig-Veda where the flowing of waters and the appearance of
the sun or the dawn are spoken of as taking place simultaneously,
as may be seen from the quotations from Macdonell's Vedic