The Arctic Home in the Vedas c10.22

c10.22

expression for ‘ten months’ in the original is dasha mâsâh, and the words are so plain that there can be no doubt about their import. We have seen that the Navagvas used to help Indra in releasing the cows from the grasp of Vala, and in X, 62, 2 and 3, the Angirases are said to have defeated Vala at the end of the year, and raised the sun to heaven. This exploit of Indra, the Angirases, the Navagvas and the Dashagvas, therefore, clearly refers to the yearly rescue of the sun, or the cows of the morning, from the dark prison into which they are thrown by Vala; and the expression “Indra found the sun dwelling in darkness”, mentioned above further supports this view. In I, 117, 5, the Ashvins are said to have rescued Vandana, like some bright buried gold, “like one asleep in the lap of Nir-riti (death), like the sun dwelling in darkness (tamasi kshiyantam)”. This shows that the expression ‘dwelling in darkness,’ as applied to the sun, means that the sun was hidden or concealed below the horizon so as not to be seen by man. We must, therefore, hold that Indra killed or defeated Vala at the end of the year, in a place of darkness, and that the Dashagvas helped Indra by their songs at the time. This might lead any one to suppose that the Soma libations, offered by the Navagvas and the Dashagvas for ten months, were offered during the time when war with Vala was waging. But the Vedic idea is entirely different. For instance the morning prayers are recited before the rise of the sun, and so the sacrifices to help Indra against Vala had to be performed before the war. Darkness or a dark period, of ten months is again astronomically impossible anywhere on the globe, and as there cannot be ten months of darkness the only other alternative admissible is that the Dashagvas and the Navagvas carried on their ten months’ sacrifice during the period of sunshine. Now if this period of sunshine had extended to twelve months, there was no reason for the Dashagvas to curtail their sacrifices and complete them in ten months. Consequently the only inference we can draw from the story of the Navagvas and the Dashagvas is that they carried on their sacrifices during ten months of sunshine and after that period, the sun went to dwell in darkness or sank below the horizon, and Indra, invigorated by the Soma libations of the Dashagvas, then entered into the cave of Vala, rent it open, released the cows of the morning and brought out the sun at the end of the old and the beginning of the new year, when the Dashagvas again commenced their sacrifices after the long dawn or dawns. In short, the Dashagvas and the Navagvas, and with them all the ancient sacrificers of the race, lived in a region where the sun was above the horizon for ten months, and then went down, producing a long yearly night of two months' duration. These ten months, therefore, formed the annual sacrificial session, or the calendar year, of the oldest sacrificers of the Aryan race, and we shall see in the next chapter that independently of the legend of the Dashagvas this view is fully supported by direct references to such a session in the Vedic sacrificial literature.