The Arctic Home in the Vedas c8.38

Language: English

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But to clinch the matter, the Taittirîya Samhitâ, IV, 3, 11, expressly states that the dawns are thirty sisters, or, in other words, they are thirty in number, and that they go round and round in five groups, reaching the same appointed place and having the same banner for all. The whole of this Anuvâka may be said to be practically a dawn-hymn of 15 verses, which are used as Mantras for the laying down of certain emblematical bricks called the ‘dawn-bricks’ on the sacrificial altar. There are sixteen such bricks to be placed on the altar, and the Anuvâka in question gives 15 Mantras, or verses, to be used on the occasion, the 16th being recorded elsewhere. These 15 verses, together with their Brâhmaṇa (T. S., V, 3, 4, 7), are so important for our purpose that I have appended to this chapter the original passages, with their translation, comparing the version in the Taittirîya Samhitâ with that of the Atharva-Veda, in the case of those verses which are found in the latter. The first verse of the section or the Anuvâka, is used for laying down the first dawn-brick, and it speaks only of a single dawn first appearing on the horizon. In the second verse we have, however, a couple dawns mentioned as ‘dwelling in the same abode.’ A third dawn is spoken in the third verse, followed by the fourth and the fifth dawn. The five dawns are then said to have five sisters each, exclusive of themselves, thus raising the total number of dawns to thirty.

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These ‘thirty sisters’ (*trimshat svasârah*) are then described as ‘going round’ (*parî yanti*) in groups of six each, keeping up to the same goal (*nishkṛitam*). Two verses later on, the worshipper asks that he and his followers should be blessed with the same concord as is observed amongst these dawns. We are then told that one of these five principal dawns is the child of Ṛita, the second upholds the greatness of Waters, the third moves in the region of Sûrya, the fourth in that of Fire or Dharma, and the fifth is ruled by Savitṛi, evidently showing that the dawns are not the dawns of consecutive days. The last verse of the *Anuvâka* sums up the description by stating that the dawn, though it shines forth in various forms, is but *one* in reality. Throughout the whole *Anuvâka* there is no mention of the rising of the sun or the appearance of sun-light, and the *Brâhmaṇa* makes the point clear by stating “There was a time, when all this was neither day nor night, being in an undistinguishable state. It was then that the Gods perceived these dawns and laid them down, *then* there was light; therefore, it brightens to him and destroys his darkness for whom these (dawn-bricks) are placed.” The object of this passage is to explain how and why the dawn-bricks came to be laid down with these Mantras, and it gives the ancient story of thirty dawns being perceived by the Gods, not on consecutive days, but during the period of time when it was neither night nor day.

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This, joined with the express statement at the end of the *Anuvâka* that in reality it is but one dawn, is sufficient to prove that the thirty dawns mentioned in the *Anuvâka* were continuous and not consecutive. But, if a still more explicit authority be needed it will be found in the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, II, 5, 6, 5. This is an old Mantra, and not a portion of the explanatory Brâhmaṇa, and is, therefore, as good an authority as any of the verses quoted above. It is addressed to the Dawns and means “These very Dawns are those that first shone forth, the Goddesses make five forms; eternal (shashvatîḥ), (they) are not separated (na avaprijyanti), nor do (they) terminate (na gamanti antam).”¹ The ‘five forms’ here referred to correspond with the division of 30 dawns into 5 groups of 6 each, made in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, after the manner of sacrificial ṣaḷ-ahas, or groups of six days; and we are expressly told that the dawns, which make these 5 forms, are continuous, unseparated, or uninterrupted. In the Ṛig-Veda I, 152, 4, the garment of the lover of the dawns (lit. the maidens, kanînâm jâram) is described as ‘inseparable’ and ‘wide’ (an-avapṛigṇa and vitata), and reading this in the light of the aforesaid Mantra from the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa we are led to conclude that in the Ṛig-Veda itself the dawny garment of the sun, or the garment, which the dawns, as mothers, weave for him (cf.

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V, 47, 6), is considered as ‘wide’ and ‘continuous.’ Translated into common language this means that the dawn described in the Ṛig-Veda was a long and continuous phenomenon. In the Atharva-Veda (VII, 22, 2) the dawns are described as sachetasaḥ and samîchîḥ, which means that they are ‘harmonious’ and ‘walk together’ and not separately. The first expression is found in the Ṛig-Veda, but not the second, though it could be easily inferred, from the fact that the dawns are there described as “collected in the same enclosure.” Griffith renders samîchîḥ by ‘a closely gathered band’ and translates the verse thus:—“The Bright one hath ent forth the Dawns, a closely gathered band, immaculate, unanimous, brightly refulgent in their homes.”¹ Here all the adjectives of the dawns clearly indicate a group of undivided dawns acting harmoniously; and yet, strange to say, Griffith, who translates correctly, misses the spirit altogether. We have thus sufficient direct authority for holding that it is a ‘team,’ or, in Griffith’s words, ‘a closely gathered band’ of thirty continuous dawns that is described in the Vedic hymns, and not the evanescent dawn of the temperate or the tropical zone, either single or as a series of consecutive dawns.