Page 448 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

VEDIC MYTHS-THE CAPTIVE WATERS 229
in the ~ig-Veda, and everywhere it represents Indra's conflict
with Vritra. • It is, therefore, preposterous to hold that a forty
years' war with the aboriginies is referred to in this single passage,
especially when the passage is capable of being interpreted diff-
erently without straining the words used. It is the most ordinary
Sanskrit idiom to use the locative case in mentioning the month,
the day, the season or the year, when a particular incident is said
to have taken place. Thus, even now, we say, "Kdrttike, shukla-
pakshe, trayodashydm," meaning " in the month of Karttika, in
the bright half, on the thirteenth ( tithi or day)." The feminine
ordinal numerals, like chaturth£, ekddashi, trayodashi, are always
used, without any noun, to denote the tithi or the day of the
month, or the fortnight, as the case may be. Thus in the Taitti-
riya Brahmapa (I, I, 9, 10 ), we have the expression " yadi
sainvatsare na ddadhydt dvddashydm purastdt ddadhydt,"
meaning that, " if the sacrificial fire is not consecrated at the end
of the year ( sainvatsare ), it should be consecrated on the twelth
( dvddashydm) afterwards." Here dvddashydm is a feminine ordinal
in the locative case used by iteslf, and means " on the twelth tithi
or day " after the end of the year mentioned in the preceding
sentence. Chatvdriinshydm, in the Vedic passage under discussion,
may be similarly taken to denote the fortieth tithi or day and
sharadi the season at the time, the two words being taken as in-
dependent locatives. The passage would then mean " Indra found
Shambara dwelling on the mountains on the fortieth ( scil. tithi
or day ) in autumn. "
Now Sharad is the fourth season of the year, and the fortieth
day of Sharad would mean seven months and ten days, or 220
days, after the first day of Vasanta or the spring, which commenced
the year in old times. In short, the passage means that Indra's
fight with Shambara, or the annual conflict between light and
darkness, commenced on the tenth day of the eighth month of
the year, or on the lOth October, if we take the year to have
then commenced with March, the first month in the old Roman
calendar. In I, 165, 6, Vi~hpu, like a rounded wheel, is said to
have set in swift motion his ninety racing steeds together with

* See the Nivids, quoted supra ( p. 246 ). Sltamla1'!l-llaty,: or the fight
with Shambara, and .~o-i~hti or the struggle for cows are ceclared to be,
the one and the same in the~e n 'rJ:ds.