Page 494 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

VEDIC MYTHS-THE MATUTINAL DEITIES 275

waters of the nether world, for the sun went below the horizon
during that period in the home of the ancestors of the Vedic
people. The connection of Trita with darkness and waters, or
his part in the Vritra fight, or the use of the word triath to
denote the sea in Old Irish now becomes perfectly plain and
intelligible. The nether world is the home of aerial waters and
Brihaspati, who is said to have released the cows from their
place of confinement in a cave in the nether world, is natu-
rally spoken of as rescuing Trita, when he was sunk in the well
of waters. Speaking of the abode of Trita, Prof. Max Muller
observes that " the hiding place of Trita, the vavra, is really
the same anarambh07Jal11 tamas, the endless darkness, from
which light and some of its legendary representatives, such as
Atri, Vandana and others emerged every day. " I subscribe to
every word of this sentence except the last two. It shows how
the learned Professor saw, but narrowly missed grasping the
truth having nothing else to guide him except the Dawn and the
Vernal theory. He had perceived that Trita's hiding place was
in the endless darkness and that the sun rose out of the same
dark region; and from this to the Acrtic theory was but a
small step. But whatever the reason may be, the Professer did
not venture to go further, and the result is that an otherwise
correct conception of the mythological incidents in Trita's le-
gend is marred by two ominous words viz.," every. day", at the
end of the sentence quoted above. Strike off the last two words,
put a full point after 'emerged', and in the light of the Arctic
theory we have a correct explanation of the legend of Trita as
well as of the origin of the name, Trita or the Third.
"
Apah
The nature and movement of aerial or celestial waters have
been discussed at length in the last chapter and practically there
is very little that remains to be said on this point. We have
also seen how the nether world or the world of waters was
conceived like an inverted hemisphere or tub, so that anyone
going there was said to go to the region of endless darkness or
bottomless waters. A mountainous range was again believed
to extend over the borders of this ocean, forming a stony wall
as it were between the upper and the lower world; and when
the waters were to be free to flow upwards, it was necessary