Page 542 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY 323

separated from each other, a phenomenon which is peculiar
only to the Arctic regions. This Vedic account of the Dawn
does not stand by itself. Thus in the Lettish mythology, the
Dawn is called diewo dukte, or the sky-daughter or the god-
daughter, much in the same way as the U~has is called divo
duhita in the ~ig-Veda; " and the poets of the Lets speak like-
wise of many beautiful sky-daughters, or god-daughters diewo
dukruzeles "• Prof. Max Muller further informs us that in the
Greek mythology we can " easily find among the wives of
H~rakles, significant names, such as Auge ( sun-light), Xanthis
( Yellow ), Chryseis ( golden ), lole ( violet ), Aglaia ( resplen-
dent ) and Eone, which cannot be separated from Eos, dawn. "t
The same story appears again in the Celtic mythology
where Cuchulainn, the Sun-hero, is described as having a wifes
who is variously named as Emer, Ethne Ingubai. Upon this
Prof. Rhys observes that " it may be that the myth pictured the
dawn not as one but as many to all of whom the Sun-god made
love in the course of the three hundred and more days of the
year. ":t It has been shown previously that the description of
the Vedic dawns, as a closely united band, precludes us from
regarding them as three hundred and more dawns of the year;
and that the only inference we can draw from a closely united
group of dawns is that it represents the long and continuou,
Arctic dawn divided into a number of parts of twentry-four
hours each for convenience. The description of the dawn in the
Lettish mythology does not seem to be so full as that in the
Vedas and by itself it may not be sufficient to indicate the Polar
dawn; but considering the fact that the dawn is described as
sky-daughter and spoken of in the plural by the poets of the
Lets and the poets of the ~ig-Veda alike we may safely extend
to the Lettish mythology the conclusion we have drawn from
the more detailed description of the Dawn in the ~ig-Veda, and
the same may be said of the Celtic and the Greek stories of the
dawn given above.
In treating of the Gavam-ayanam and the corresponding
legend of the Dashagvas, a reference has already been made

• Max Muller's Contributions to the Science of Mythology, p. 432.
t fhid, p. 722.
:!: Rhys' Hibbert Lecture~, p. 4 sB.