The Arctic Home in the Vedas c9.14

c9.14

limitations; (10) *Upamâna*, an apt comparison or simile. Sâyaṇa in his introduction to the commentary on the Rig-Veda mentions the first nine of these, and as an illustration of the eighth, *Purâ-kalpa*, quotes the explanatory passage from the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, I, 5, 7, 5, referred to above. According to Sâyaṇa the statement, "In former times the priests were afraid that it would not dawn," therefore, comes under *Purâ-kalpa*, or ancient traditional history found in the Brâhmaṇas. It is no *Arthavâda*, that is, speculation or explanation put forth by the Brâhmaṇa itself. This is evident from the word *purâ* which occurs in the Saṁhitâ text, and which shows that some piece of ancient traditional information is here recorded. Now if this view is correct, a question naturally arises why should ordinary long winter nights have caused such apprehensions in the minds of the priests only 'in former times,' and why should the long darkness cease to inspire the same fears in the minds of the present generation. The long winter nights in the tropical and the temperate zone are as long to-day as they were thousands of years ago, and yet none of us, not even the most ignorant, feels any misgiving about the dawn which puts an end to the darkness of these long nights. It may, perhaps, be urged that in ancient times the bards had not acquired the knowledge necessary to predict the certain appearance of the dawn after a lapse of some hours in such cases. But the lameness of this excuse becomes at once evident when we see that the Vedic calendar was, at this time, so much advanced that even the question of the equation of the solar and the lunar year was solved with sufficient accuracy. Sâyaṇa's explanation of winter nights causing misgivings about the coming dawn must, therefore, be rejected as unsatisfactory. It was not the long winter-night that the Vedic bards were afraid of in former ages. It was something else, something very long, so long that, though you knew it would not last permanently, yet, by its very length, it tired your patience and made you long for, eagerly long for, the coming dawn. In short, it was the long night of the Arctic region, and the word purâ shows that it was a story of former ages, which the Vedic bards knew by tradition. I have shown elsewhere that the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ must be assigned to the Kṛittikâ period. We may, therefore, safely conclude that at about 2500 B. C., there was a tradition current amongst the Vedic people to the effect that in former times, or rather in the former age, the priests grew so impatient of the length of the night, the yonder boundary of which was not known, that they fervently prayed to their deities to guide them safely to the other end of that tiresome darkness. This description of the night is inappropriate unless we take it to refer to the long and continuous Arctic night.