The Arctic Home in the Vedas c8.58

c8.58

But if the Vedic dawn is Polar in origin, the ancestors of the Vedic bards must have witnessed it, not in the Post-Glacial, but in the Pre-Glacial era; and it may be finally asked why a reference to this early age is not found in the hymns before us? Fortunately the hymns do preserve a few indications of the time when these long dawns appeared. Thus, in I, 113, 13, we are told that the Goddess Dawn shone perpetually in *former days (purâ)*, and here the word *purâ* does not mean the foregone days of this *kalpa*, but rather refers to a by-gone age, or *purâ kalpa*, as in the passage from the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ (I, 5, 7, 5), quoted and discussed in the next chapter. The word *prathamâ*, in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, IV, 3, 11, 1, and the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, II, 5, 6, 5, does not again mean simply 'first in order,' but refers to 'ancient times,' as when Indra's 'first' or 'oldest' exploits are mentioned in I, 32, 1, or when certain practices are said to be 'first' or 'old' in X, 90, 16. It is probable that it was this import of the word *prathamâ* that led Sâyaṇa to propose that the first dawn, mentioned in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, IV, 3, 11, represented the dawn at the beginning of the creation. The Vedic poets could not but have been conscious that the Mantras they used to lay down the dawn-bricks were inapplicable to the dawn as they saw it, and the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ (V, 3, 4, 7), which explains the Mantras, clearly states that this story or the description of the dawns is a tradition of old times when the Gods perceived the thirty dawns. It is not, therefore, correct to say that there are no references in the Vedic hymns to the time when these long dawns were visible. We shall revert to the point later on, when further evidence on the subject will be noticed and discussed. The object of the present chapter was to examine the duration of the Vedic Dawn, the Goddess of the morning, the subject of so many beautiful hymns in the Rig-Veda, and to show that the deity is invested with Polar characteristics. The evidence in support of this view has been fully discussed; and we shall, therefore, now take up the other Polar and Cir-cum-Polar tests previously mentioned, and see whether we can find out further evidence from the Rig-Veda to strengthen our conclusions.