Page 460 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

VEDIC MYTHS-THE CAPTIVE WATERS 241
for the word Indra does not occur in European Aryan languages,
and it has, therefore, been suggested by some comparative mytho-
logians that the conquest of waters, which was originally the ex-
ploit of some other Aryan deity, was probably ascribed to Indra
in the Vedic mythology, when Indra became the principal deity
in the Vedic pantheon. The fact that Tishtrya, and not Verethraghna,
is said to be the releaser of waters and light in the A vesta, lends
some support to this theory. But whichever view we adopt, it does
not affect the conclusion we have come to above regarding the true
explanation of the Vritra legend. Clouds and rain cannot consti-
tute the physical basis of the legend, which is evidently based on
the. simple phenomenon of bringing light to the people who had
anxiously waited for it during the darkness of the long night in the
Arctic regions; and it is a pity that any misconception regarding
Vedic cosmography, or the nature of waters and their cosmic move-
ments should have, for some time atleast, stood in the way of the
true interpretation of this important legend. Indra may have be-
come a storm-god afterwards; or the conquest over V!itra, origi-
nally achieved by some other deity, may have come to be ascribed
to Indra, the rain-god in later times. But whether the exploits of
Vritra-haiz were subsequently ascribed to Indra, or whether Indra,
)ts the releaser of captive waters, was afterwards mistaken for the
god of rain; like Tishtrya in the Avesta, one fact stands out boldly
amidst all details, viz. that captive waters were the aerial waters
in the nether world, and that their captivity represented the annual
struggle between light and darkness in the original home of the
Aryans in the Arctic region; and if this fact was not hitherto dis-
covered, it was because our knowledge of the ancient man was too
meagre to· enable U!i to perceive it properly.

A. 16