The Arctic Home in the Vedas c12.33.2

c12.33.2

but Wallis asks us to compare this verse with I, 185, 1, where day and night are said "to revolve like two wheels," that is, to circle round from east to west, the one rising as the other goes down, and observes that "we are in no way obliged to consider that the progress of either is continued below the earth." I am unable to understand how we can draw such an inference from these passages. In VI, 9, 1, quoted by Zimmer, two *rajas* or atmospheres are mentioned, and the bright and the dark day are said to roll along both these *rajas* or regions. But if we hold with Wallis that the progress of either begins in the east and stops in the west, without going below the earth, the whole movement becomes confined to one *rajas* or region and does not extend over the two. Zimmer's interpretation is, therefore, not only more probable, but the only one that explains the use of *rajasî* (in the dual), or the two regions, in the verse. The next passage (VII, 80, 1) is also misunderstood by Wallis. It describes the dawn as "unrolling the two regions (*rajasî*), which border on each other (*samante*), revealing all things." Now the dawn always appears on the horizon and the two *rajas*, which it unrolls and which are said to border on each other, must meet on this horizon. They can, therefore, only represent the lower and the upper celestial sphere.