The Arctic Home in the Vedas c7.25

Language: English

c7.25.1

It is true, that the statement, or anything similar to it, is not found in the Rig-Veda; but it will be shewn later on that there are many other passages in the Rig-Veda which go to corroborate this statement in a remarkable way by referring to other Polar characteristics. I may, however, mention here the fact that the oldest Vedic year appears to have been divided only into two portions, the Devayâna and the Pitṛiyâna, which originally corresponded with the Uttarâyaṇa and the Dakṣhiṇâyana, or the day and the night of the Gods. The word Devayâna occurs several times in the Rig-Veda Saṁhitâ, and denotes the path of the Gods.' Thus in the Rig-Veda, I, 72, 7 Agni is said to be cognizant of the Devayâna road, and in Rig. I, 183, 6, and 184, 6, the poet says, "We have, O Ashvins! reached the end of darkness; now come to us by the Devayâna road."² In VII, 76, 2, we again read, "The Devayâna path has become visible to me ... The banner of the Dawn has appeared in the east." Passages like these clearly indicate that the road of the Devayâna commenced at the rise of the Dawn, or after the end of darkness; and that it was the road by which Agni, Ashvins, Ushas, Sûrya and other matutinal deities travelled during their heavenly course.

c7.25.2

The path of the Pitris, or the Pitriyâna, is, on the other hand, described in X, 18, 1, as the “reverse of Devayâna, or the path of Death.” In the Rig-Veda, X, 88, 15, the poet says that he has “heard” only of “two roads, one of the Devas and the other of the Pitris.” If the Devayâna, therefore, commenced with the Dawn, we must suppose that the Pitriyâna commenced with the advent of darkness. Sâyaṇa is, therefore, correct in interpreting V, 77, 2, as stating that “the evening is not for the Gods (devayâḥ).” Now if the Devayâna and the Pitriyâna were only synonymous with ordinary day and night, there was obviously no propriety in stating that these were the only two paths or roads known to the ancient Ṛishis, and they could not have been described as consisting of three seasons each, beginning with the spring, (Shat. Brâ. II, 1, 3, 1-3).¹ It seems, therefore, very probable that the Devayâna and the Pitriyâna originally represented a two-fold division of the year, one of continuous light and the other of continuous darkness as at the North Pole; and that though it was not suited to the later home of the Vedic people it was retained, because it was an established and recognised fact in the language, like the seven suns, or the seven horses of a single sun. The evidence in support of this view will be stated in subsequent chapters.

c7.25.3

It is sufficient to observe in this place, that if we interpret the two-fold division of the Devayâna and the Pitriyâna in this way, it fully corroborates the statement in the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa that a year was but a day of the Gods. We may also note in this connection that the expression ‘path f the Gods’ occurs even in the Parsi scriptures. Thus in the Farvardîn Yasht, paras 56, 57, the Fravashis, which correspond with the Pitris in the Vedic literature, are said to have shown to the sun and the moon “the path made by Mazda, the way made by the Gods,” along which the Fravashis themselves are described as growing. The sun and the moon are, again, said to have “stood for a long time in the same place, without moving forwards through the oppression of the Daevas (Vedic Asuras, or the demons of darkness),” before the Fravashis showed ‘the path of Mazda,’ to these two luminaries.¹ This shows that ‘the path of Mazda’ commenced, like the Devayâna road, when the sun was set free from the clutches of the demons of darkness. In other words, it represented the period of the year when the sun was above the horizon at the place where the ancestors of the Indo-Iranian lived in ancient days. We have seen that the Devayâna, or the path of the Gods, is the way along which Sûrya, Agni and other matutinal deities are said to travel in the Rig-Veda;

c7.25.4

and the Parsi scriptures supplement this information by telling us that the sun stood still before the Fravashis showed to him ‘the path of Mazda’, evidently meaning that the Devayâna, or ‘the path of Mazda,’ was the portion of the year when the sun was above the horizon after being confined for some time by the powers of darkness.