Page 550 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

COMPARATIVE MYTiiOLOGY 331

is then said to have brought him to his house safe and unhurt.
Vifra NavAza in this legend is very likely Vipra Navagva of
the ~g-Veda. We have seen that the Navagvas and seven vipras
are mentioned together in the ~ig-Veda ( VI, 22, 2 ) and that
the Ashvins, who are called vipra-wzhasa ( in V, 74, 7 ), are
said to have resided for three nights in the distant region. It
is not unlikely, therefore, that the story of the Navagvas, who
go to help Indra in the world of darkness after completing
their sacrificial session of nine months, may have been combin-
ed with the story of the Ashvins in the A vestic legend of Vifra
Navdza, Sanskrit, Vipra being changed into A vestic Vifra and
Navagva into Navaza.
The above legends from the Greek, Celtic and Norse lite-
ratures show that a long winter-darkness was not unknown to
the ancestors of the Aryan races in Europe, who have preserv-
ed distinct reminiscences of a year of ten or six months sun-
shine, and that the Navagvas and the Dashagvas of the ~ig­
Veda have again their parallels in the ,mythology of other
Aryan .races, though the resemblance may not be as obvious
in the one as in the other case. A year of six months' or ten
months' sunshine pecessarily implies a long continuous day
and a long continuous night, and distinct references to these
Arctic characteristics of day and night are found in Norse and
Slavonic legends. Thus the Norse Sun-god Balder is said to
have dwelt in a place in heaven called Breidablik or Broadgleam,
the most blessed of all lands, where nought unclean or accursed
could abide. Upon this Prof. Rhys observes, "It is remark-
able that Balder had a dwelling place in the heavens, and this,
seems to refer to Arctic summer when the sun prolongs his stay
above the horizon. The pendant to the picture would natu-
rally be his stayings as long in the nether world. "* This corre-
sponds exactly with the Vedic description of the sun's unyok-
ing his carriage and making a halt in the mid of the heaven,
discussed in the sixth chapter. The story of three brothers in
the Slavonic literature also points out to the same conclusion.
We are told that "Once there was an old couple who had
three sons. Two of them had their wits about them, but the
third, Ivan, was a simpleton. Now in the land in which Ivan

• Rhys' Hibbert Lectures, p. 536.