The Arctic Home in the Vedas c12.44

c12.44

We read of a golden boat also in the Lettish mythology; and Prof. Max Muller, referring to it, says, “What the golden boat is that sinks into the sea and is mourned for by the daughter of the sky, however, doubtful it may be elsewhere, is not to be mistaken in the mythology of the Lets. It is the setting sun, which in the Veda has to be saved by the Ashvins; it is the golden boat in which Hêlios and Hêracles sail from west to east. Sometimes it is the Sun-daughter herself that is drowned like Chyavâna in the Veda, and as Chyavâna and similar heroes had to be saved in the Veda by the Ashvins, the Lets also call upon the God-sons to row in a boat and save the Sun-daughter.”¹ In connection with this, it may be here observed that the Ashvins are described in the Rig-Veda as saving their proteges in boats (I, 116, 3; I, 182, 6), and that though Ashvins’ boats are not described as golden, their chariot is said to be *hiraṇyayî* or golden in VIII, 5, 29; while the boats of Pûshan, in which he crosses the aerial ocean (*samudra*), are actually said to be golden in VI, 58, 3. In I, 46, 7, the Ashvins are again spoken of as having both a chariot and a boat, as a sort of double equipment; and their chariot is said to be *samâna yojana*, or traversing, without distinction, both the heaven and the watery regions in I, 30, 18. The word *samâna* is meaningless unless there is some difficulty in traversing over one part of the celestial sphere as distinguished from the other. The Vedic gods used these boats especially in crossing the lower world, the home and seat of aerial waters; and when they appeared above the horizon, they are described as traversing the upper sphere by means of their chariots. But sometimes the waters are said to carry them even across the sky above, just as the chariot is described as going over the lower world. For instance in the legend of Dîrghatamas, discussed previously, he is said to be borne on waters for ten months and then growing old was about to die or reach the ocean, to which the waters were speeding. In other words, this means that the sun, who was borne on waters for ten months, was about to go into the lower watery regions as explained in the chapter VI. But to proceed with the subject in hand, the idea of the cosmic circulation of aerial waters, is not confined to the Indian, the Iranian or the Greek mythology. In the Egyptian mythology, Nu-t, the goddess of the sky, is sometimes "represented by a figure in which the band of stars is accompanied by a band of water"; and Sir Norman Lockyer tells us that "not only the Sun-gods, but the stars, were also supposed to travel in boats across the firmament from one horizon to the other."¹ The Jewish idea of the firmament in the midst of waters, the waters above being afterwards separated from the waters below the firmament, is already referred to above. There is, therefore, nothing strange or surprising if we find in the Vedas and in the Avesta more or less clear references to the circulation of aerial waters through the upper and the lower celestial hemispheres of the universe. It is an idea which is found in the ancient mythology of every other nation, and nothing but false prejudice can deter us from interpreting the simultaneous movements or the liberation of waters and light, described in the Vedic hymns, on the theory of the cosmic circulation of aerial waters.