The Arctic Home in the Vedas c11.53.3

c11.53.3

The Daêva Apaosha is again said to have assumed the form of a dark horse, while Tishtrya is represented as opposing him in the form of a bright horse, hoof against hoof (Yt. VIII, 28), and eventually coming up victorious from out of the sea Vouru-Kasha, like the sacrificial horse rising from the waters in the Rig-Veda (I, 163, 1). But the passage most important for our purpose is the one in which Tishtrya informs Ahura Mazda as to what should be done in order to enable Tishtrya to overcome his enemy and to appear before the faithful at the appointed time. "If men would worship me," says Tishtrya to Ahura Mazda, "with a sacrifice in which I were invoked by my own name, as they worship the other Yazatas with sacrifices in which they are invoked by their own names, then I should have come to the faithful at the appointed time; I should have come in the appointed time of my beautiful immortal life, should it be one night, or two nights, or fifty, or a hundred nights," (Yt. VIII, 11). As Tishtrya appears before man after his battle with Apaosha, the phrase "appointed time ” signifies the time during which the battle is fought and at the termination of which Tishtrya comes to the faithful;