The Arctic Home in the Vedas c13.16

c13.16

Now if Bhujyu was plunged in this bottomless darkness and ocean for three nights and three days (I, 116, 4), or Rebha was there for ten nights and nine days (I, 116, 24), it is clear that the period represents a continuous darkness of so many days and nights as stated above; and I think, the story of Ṛijrâshva, or the Red-horse, also refers to the same incident, viz., the continuous darkness of the Arctic region. Ṛijrâshva, that is, the Red-horse, is said to have slaughtered 100 or 101 sheep and gave them to the Vṛikî, or the she-wolf, and his own father being angry on that account is said to have deprived him of his sight. But the Ashvins at the prayer of the she-wolf restored to Ṛijrâshva his eyesight and thus cured him of his blindness. Prof. Max Muller thinks that the sheep may here mean the stars, which may be said to have been slaughtered by the rising sun. But we have seen that the 350 sheep of Hêlios are taken to represent 350 nights, while the corresponding 350 days are said to be represented by his 350 oxen. In short, the Greek legend refers to a year of 350 days and a continuous night of ten days; and the period of 10 nights mentioned in the legend of Rebha well accords with this conception of the ancient Aryan year, inferred from the story of Hêlios. This resemblance between the two stories naturally leads us to inquire if any clue cannot be found to the interpretation of the legend of Rijrâshva in the story of Hêlios; and when we examine the subject from this point of view, it is not difficult to discover the similarity between the slaughter of sheep by Rijrâshva and the consuming of the oxen of Hêlios by the companion of Odysseus. The wolf, as observed by Prof. Max Muller, is generally understood in the Vedic literature to be a representative of darkness and mischief rather than of light, and therefore the slaughter of 100 sheep for him naturally means the conversion of hundred days into nights, producing thereby a continuous darkness for a hundred nights of 24 hours each. Rijrâshva or the Red-sun may well be spoken of as becoming blind during these hundred continuous nights, and eventually cured of his blindness by the Ashvins, the harbingers of light and dawn. The only objection that may be urged against this interpretation is that hundred days should have been described as oxen or cows and not as sheep. But I think, that such nice distinctions cannot be looked for in every myth, and that if hundred days were really converted into so many nights we can well speak of them as "sheep." The slaughter of 100 or 101 sheep can thus be easily and naturally explained on the theory of long continuous darkness, the maximum length of which, as stated in the previous chapter, was one hundred days, or a hundred periods of 24 hours. In short, the legends of the Ashvins furnish us with evidence of three, ten, or a hundred continuous nights in ancient times; and the incidents which lead us to this inference, are, at best, but feebly explained by the Vernal or the Dawn theory as at present understood.