The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c11.100.2

c11.100.2

The word Mriga, so far as I know, is no where used in the Rigveda in this sense. Again, if the word Mriga in the third verse of this hymn is to be understood as meaning an antelope, is it not natural enough to suppose that the same Mriga is referred to in this verse? Then, again, how can the sun be said to become invisible to the people when he is in the house of gods? Nor can he be invisible to Indra whose house he enters. What can, in such a case, be the propriety of the word udancha or "rising upwards"? If Mriga means the sun according to Yâska, we shall have to suppose that the rising sun was *invisible*, a clear contradiction in terms. I am sure Yâska, here, tried to explain away the difficulty in the same way as he has done in the case of *Vṛika*. But, in the present instance, the solution he has proposed is, on the face of it, highly inconsistent, so much so that even Sâyaṇa, does not follow it. Sâyaṇa, however, has nothing else to propose, and he quietly leaves the word *Mṛiga* as it is and unexplained in his commentary. In short, both Sâyaṇa and Yâska have found the verse too difficult to explain. The meaning I have proposed explains the verse in a natural and a simple manner, and further corroborates the statement in the Rigveda previously referred to *viz.*, "Canis awakened the Ribhus at the end of the year." In the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa i. 5. 2.