The Arctic Home in the Vedas c8.38.4

c8.38.4

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.