The Arctic Home in the Vedas c12.53

c12.53

According to this interpretation *Sharad* becomes the last season of sunshine, and it may be here remarked that the etymological meaning of the word further supports the same view. For *Sharad* is derived from *shṛi*, to wither or waste away, (Uṇādi 127), and the word thus primarily signifies the ‘season of decay or withering’; and the decay here referred to is evidently the decay of the power of the sun, and not the withering of grass, as suggested by Sāyaṇa in his commentary on III, 32, 9. Thus we find in the Taittirīya Saṃhitā, II, 1, 2, 5, that “There are three lustres or powers of the sun; one in *Vasanta*, that is, in the morning; one in *Grīṣma* or the mid-day; and one in *Sharad* or the evening.”¹ We cannot suppose that the words, morning, mid-day and evening, are here used in their primary sense. The three stages of the day represented by them are predicated of the yearly sun, and *Sharad* is said to be the evening, *i.e.*, the time of decline in his yearly course. It follows, therefore, that after *Sharad* there was no period of sunshine in ancient times; and a Vedic passage,² quoted by Shabara in his commentary on Jaimini Suttras VI, 7, 40, says, “The sun is all the seasons; when it is morning (*uditi*), it is *Vasanta*; when the milking time (*saṅgava*), it is *Grīṣma*;