The Arctic Home in the Vedas c15.3

c15.3

Following the order adopted in the discussion of the Vedic evidence, we shall first take up the question of the ancient calendar and see if the traditions preserved by the western Aryan races about the ancient year point to any Arctic characteristics, such as the long dawn, the long day, the long night, or an annual period of sunshine of less than twelve months' duration. We have seen that the Dawn is very often spoken of in the plural in the Rig-Veda and that a group of thirty Dawn-Sisters is actually described as moving round and round with one mind and in the same enclosure without being separated from each other, a phenomenon which is peculiar only to the Arctic regions. This Vedic account of the Dawn does not stand by itself. Thus in the Lettish mythology, the Dawn is called *diewo dukte*, or the sky-daughter or the god-daughter, much in the same way as the Uṣhas is called *divo duhitâ* in the Rig-Veda; "and the poets of the Lets speak likewise of many beautiful sky-daughters, or god-daughters *diewo dukruzeles*."¹ Prof. Max Muller further informs us that in the Greek mythology we can "easily find among the wives of Hêrakles, significant names, such as Auge (sun-light), Xanthis (yellow), Chrysêis (golden), Iole (violet), Aglaia (resplendent), and Eône, which cannot be separated from Eos, dawn."² The same story appears again in the Celtic mythology where Cuchulainn, the Sun-hero, is described as having a wife, who is variously named as Emer, Ethne Ingubai. Upon this Prof. Rhys observes that "it may be that the myth pictured the dawn not as one but as many to all of whom the Sun-god made love in the course of the three hundred and more days of the year.”¹ It has been shown previously that the description of the Vedic Dawns, as a closely united band, precludes us from regarding them as three hundred and more dawns of the year; and that the only inference we can draw from a closely united group of dawns is that it represents the long and continuous Arctic dawn divided into a number of parts of twenty-four hours each for convenience. The description of the dawn in the Lettish mythology does not seem to be so full as that in the Vedas and by itself it may not be sufficient to indicate the Polar dawn; but considering the fact that the dawn is described as sky-daughter and spoken of in the plural by the poets of the Lets and the poets of the Rig-Veda alike, we may safely extend to the Lettish mythology the conclusion we have drawn from the more detailed description of the Dawn in the Rig-Veda, and the same may be said of the Celtic and the Greek stories of the Dawn given above.