The Arctic Home in the Vedas c10.48.1

c10.48.1

Thus *pare ardhe* is constrasted with *upare ardhe* in the second line, *pañcha-pâdam* (compare *pañchâre* in the next verse, *i. e.*, Rig-Veda I, 164, 13) with *shad-are*, and *purīṣiṇam* with *vichakṣaṇam*. In short, the verse under consideration describes the year either (1) as five-footed, and lying in waters in the farther part of heaven, or (2) as mounted on a six-spoked car and far-seeing in the nearer part of the heaven. These two descriptions cannot evidently apply to seasons in one and the same place, and the artifice of combining two consecutive seasons cannot be accepted as a solution of the question. Five seasons and ten months, followed by the watery residence of the sun or dark nights, is what is precisely described in the first half of this passage (I, 164, 12), and, from what has been said hitherto, it will be easily seen that it is the Arctic year of ten months that is here described. The verse, and especially the contrast between *purīṣiṇam* and *vichakṣaṇam*, does not appear to have attracted the attention it deserves. But in the light of the Arctic theory the description is now as intelligible as any. The Vedic bards have here preserved for us the memory of a year of five seasons or ten months, although their year had long been changed into one of twelve months.