Page 474 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

VEDIC MYTHS-THE MATUTINAl. DEITIES 255
so may your· embryo ( garbha ) move ( in your womb ), and come
out after being developed for ten months ( dashamdsya~)"
" 8. Just as the wind, just as the forest, just as the sea moves,
so 0 ten-monthed (embryo) l come out with the outer cover,
(jarayu )."
"9. May the child ( kumara ), lying in the mother's (womb)
for ten months, come out alive and unhurt, alive for the living
mother."
These three verses, as observed above, immediately follow
the verses where the wooden case is said to be shut and opened
for Saptavadhri, and naturally they must be taken to refer to,
or rather as forming a part of the same legend. But neither the
Vernal nor the Dawn theory supplies us with any clue whatso-
ever to the right interpretation of these verses. The words used
present no difficulty. A child full-grown in the womb for ten
months is evidently intended, and its safe delivery is prayed for.
But what could this child be ? The wife of the eunuch Vadhri-
mati is already said to have got a child Hira~ya-hasta through
the favour of the Ashvins. We cannot, therefore, suppose that
she prayed for the safe delivery of a child, nor can Saptavadhri
be said to have prayed for the safe delivery of his wife, who never
bore a child to him. The verses, or rather their connection with
the story of Saptavadhri told in the first six verses of the hymn,
have, therefore; remained unexplained up-to the present day,
the only explanations hitherto offered being, as observed above,
either utterly unsatisfactory or rather no explanations at all.
The whole mystery is, however, cleared up by the light
thrown upon the legend by the Arctic theory. The dawn is some-
times spoken of in the ~ig-Veda as producing the sun ( I; 113, 1 ;
VII, 78, 3 ). But this dawn cannot be said to have borne the
child for ten months; nor can we suppose that the word dasha-
masya!z ( of ten months ), which is found in the 7th and the 8th
and the phrase dasha masan found in the 9th verse of the hymn
were used without any specific meaning or intention. We must,
therefore, look for some other explanation, and this is supplied
by the fact that the sun is said to be pre-eminently the son of
Dyava prithivi, or simply of Dyu in the Rig-Veda. Thus in X,
37, 1, the sun is called divas-putra or the son of Dyu, and in I,
164, 33, we read, " Dyu is the father, who begot us, our origin
is there, this gieat Earth is our parent mother. The father laid