The Arctic Home in the Vedas c8.41

c8.41

It is interesting to examine how Sâyaṇa explains the existence of as many as thirty dawns, before we proceed to other authorities. In his commentary on the Taittirîya Saṃhitâ IV, 3, 11, he tells us that the first dawn spoken of in the first verse in the Anuvâka, is the dawn at the beginning of the creation, when every thing was undistinguishable according to the Brâhmaṇa. The second dawn in the second verse is said to be the ordinary dawn that we see every day. So far it was all right; but the number of dawns soon outgrew the number of the kinds of dawn known to Sâyaṇa. The third, fourth and fifth verses of the Anuvâka describe three more dawns, and Sâyaṇa was at last forced to explain that though the dawn was one yet by its Yogic or occult powers it assumed these various shapes! But the five dawns multiplied into thirty sisters in the next verse, and Sâyaṇa finally adopted the explanation that thirty separate dawns represented the thirty consecutive dawns of one month. But, why only thirty dawns of one month out of 360 dawns of a year should thus be selected in these Mantras is nowhere explained. The explanations, besides being mutually inconsistent, again conflict with the last verse in the Anuvâka, with the Brâhmaṇa or the explanation given in the Saṃhitâ itself, and with the passage from the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa quoted above. But Sâyaṇa was writing under a firm belief that the Vedic dawn was the same as he and other Vedic scholars like Yâska perceived it in the tropical zone; and the wonder is, not that he has given us so many contradictory explanations, but that he has been able to suggest so many apparently plausible explanations as the exigencies of the different Mantras required. In the light of advancing knowledge about the nature of the dawn at the North Pole, and the existence of man on earth before the last Glacial epoch, we should, therefore, have no hesitation in accepting more intelligible and rationalistic view of the different passages descriptive of the dawns in the Vedic literature. We are sure Sâyaṇa himself would have welcomed a theory more comprehensive and reasonable than any advanced by him, if the same could have been suggested to him in his own day. Jyotiṣh or astronomy has always been considered to be the ‘eye of the Veda,’¹ and as with the aid of the telescope this eye now commands a wider range than previously it will be our own fault if we fail to utilise the knowledge so gained to elucidate those portions of our sacred books which are still unintelligible.