The Arctic Home in the Vedas c11.29

c11.29

"There were thus three kinds of cows, the real cows, the cows in the dark cloud (rain = milk), and the cows stepping forth from the dark stable of the night (the rays of the morning). These three are not always easy to distinguish in the Veda, nay, while we naturally try to distinguish between them, the poets themselves seem to delight in mixing them up. In the passage quoted above (I, 32, 11), we saw how the captive waters were compared to cows that had been stolen by Paṇi (*niruddhâḥ âpaḥ Paṇinâ iva gâvaḥ*), but what is once compared in the Veda is soon identified. As to the Dawn, she is not only compared to a cow, she is called the cow straight out. Thus when we read, R.V. I, 92, 1, ‘These dawns have made a light, on the eastern half of the sky, they brighten their splendour, the bright cows approach, the mothers,’ the cows, *gâvaḥ*, can only be the dawns themselves, the plural of dawn being constantly in the Veda used where we should use the singular. In R.V. I, 93, 4, we read that ‘Agniṣhomau deprived Paṇi of his cows and found light for many.’ Here again the cows are the dawns kept by Paṇi in the dark stable or cave of the night, discovered by Saramâ and delivered every morning by the gods of light."