Page 495 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

276 SAMAGRA TILAK - 2 • THE ARCTIC HOME
to pierce through the mountainous range and clear the aper-
tures which were clo ed by Vritra by stretching his body across
them. In one place the well or avata, which Brahmapaspati
opened, is said to be closed at its mouth with stones
( ashmasyam II, 24, 4 ), and in X, 67, 3, the stony barriers
( ashmanmayani nahana ) of the prison wherein the cows were
confined are expressly mentioned. A mountain, parvata, is also
said to exist in the belly of Vritra ( I, 54, 10 ), and Shambara is
described as dwelling on the mountains. We have seen how the
word parvata occurring in thi connection has been misunderstood
ever ince the days of the Nairu.ktas who, though they did a
yeoman's service to the cause of Vedic interpretation, seem to
have sometimes carried their etymological method too far.
The connection of the nether world of waters with mountains
and darkness may thus be taken as established, and the legends
of V.~itra, Bbujyu, Saptavadhri, Trita, etc., further show that
the nether waters formed not only the home of the evil
spirits and the scene of fights with them, but that it was the
place which Sfuya, Agni, Vi~hr1U, the Ashvins and Trita had
all to visit during a portion of the year. It was the place where
Vi~hpu slept, or hid himself, when afflicted with a kind of skin-
disease, and where the sacrificial horse which represented the
sun, harnessed by Trita and first bestrode by lndra (I, 163, 2 ).
It was the place from which the seven aerial rivers rose up with
the seven suns to illumine the ancient home of the Aryan race
for seven months, and into which they again dropped with the
sun after that period. It was the same waters that formed the
source of earthly waters by producing rain by their circulation
through the upper regions of heaven. These waters were
believed to stretch from west to east underneath the three
earths, thus forming at once the place of desolation and the
place of the birth of the sun and other matutinal deities
mentioned in the Rig-Veda. It was the place where Vptra
concealed the cows in a stony stable and where Varupa and
Yama reigned supreme and the fathers ( Pi~is) lived in com-
fort and delight. As regards the division of this watery region,
we might say that the Vedic bards conceived the nether world
as divided in the same way as the earth and the heaven. Thus
there were three, seven or ten lower worlds to match with the
threefold or ten-fold division of the heaven and the earth. It