Page 475 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

256 SAMAGRA TILAK - 2 • THE ARCTIC HOME

the daughter's embryo ( garbham) within the womb_ of the two
wide .~owls ( uttanayo!J chamvo!z. )" In the preceeding verse,
we have, " He ( the sun) yet ~nveloped in his mother's womb,
having various offsprings, has gone into the ( region of ) Nir-
riti" and further that " he, who had made him, does. not know
of him; surely is he hidden from those who saw him." In I, 160,
1, we similarly find that " These Heaven and Earth, bestowers
of prosperity and all, the wide sustainers of the regions,_ the two
bowls of noble birth, the holy ones; between these two goddess-
es, the refulgent sun-god travels by fixed decrees. " These
passages clearly show ( 1 ) that the sun was conceived as a child
of the two bowls, Heaven and Earth, ( 2 ) that the sun moved
like an embryo in the womb, i. e., the interior of heaven and
earth, and ( 3 ) that after moving in this way in this womb of
the mother for some time, and producing various off-springs,
the sun sank into the land of desolation ( Nir-riti ), and became
hidden to those that saw him before. Once the annual course
of the sun was conceived in this way, it did not require any great
stretch of imagination to represent the dropping of the sun into
Nir-riti as an exit from the womb of his mother. But what are
we to understand by the phrase that ' he moved in the womb for
ten months ? ' The Arctic theory explains this point satisfacto-
rily. We have seen that Dirghatamas was borne on waters for
ten months, and the Dashagvas are said to have completed their
sacrificial session during the same period. The sun can, therefore,
be very well described, while above the horizon-for ten months,
as moving in the womb of his mother, or between heaven and
earth for ten months. After this period, the sun was lost,
or went out of the womb into the land of desolation, there
to be shut up as in a wooden case for two· months. The sage
Atri, therefore, rightly invokes the Ashvins for his deliverance
from the box and also for the safe delivery of the child
i. e. himself from the womb of his mother after ten
months. In the Atharva Veda XI, 5, I, the sun as a
Brahmacharin, is said to move between heaven and earth, and
in the 12th verse of the same hymn we are told that " Shouting
forth, thundering, red, white he carries a great penis ( brihach-
chhepas ) along the earth. " If the sun moving between heaven
and earth is called brihach chhepas he may well be called Vadhri
( eunuch ), when sunk into the land of Nir-riti. But Prof. Max