The Arctic Home in the Vedas c13.24.4

c13.24.4

sapta âpaḥ X, 104, 8), or when we have seven Dânus or demons, mentioned in X, 120, 6, or when Indra is called sapta-han or the seven-slayer (X, 49, 8), or Vṛitra is said to have seven forts (I, 63, 7), or when the cowstead (vraja), which the two Ashvins are said to have opened in X, 40, 8, is described as saptâsya, the sun, who is bṛihach-chhepas and seven-rayed or seven-horsed (V, 45, 9) while moving between heaven and earth, may very well be described as Saptavadhri or seven-eunuch when sunk into the land of Nir-ṛiti or the nether world of bottomless darkness, from which he is eventually released by the Ashvins. The last three verses of V, 78, can thus be logically connected with the story of Saptavadhri mentioned in the immediately preceding verses, if the period of ten months, during which the child moves in the mother's womb, is taken to represent the period of ten months' sunshine followed by the long night of two months, the existence of which we have established by independent Vedic evidence. The point has long remained unexplained, and it is only by the Arctic theory that it can be now satisfactorily accounted for.