The Arctic Home in the Vedas c9.20

Language: English

c9.20.1

But though the first half may be thus interpreted, another difficulty arises, as soon as we take up the third quarter of the verse. It says, “Two sisters are they, the dark (shyâvî) and the bright (aruṣhî).” Now the question is whether the two sisters (svasârau) here mentioned are the same as, or different from, the twin pair (yamyâ) mentioned in the first half of the verse. If we take them as identical, the third pâda or quarter of the verse becomes at once superfluous. If we take them as different, we must explain how and where the two pairs differ. The commentators have not been able to solve the difficulty, and they have, therefore, adopted the course of regarding the twins (yamyâ) and the sisters (svasârau) as identical, even at the risk of tautology. It will surely be admitted that this is not a satisfactory course, and that we ought to find a better explanation, if we can. This is not again the only place where two distinct couples of Day and Night are mentioned. There is another word in the Rig-Veda which denotes a pair of Day and Night. It is Ahanî, which does not mean ‘two days,’ but Day and Night, for, in VI, 9, 1, we are expressly told that “there is a dark ahaḥ (day) and a bright ahaḥ (day).” Ahanî, therefore, means a couple of Day and Night, and we have seen that Uṣhâsâ-naktâ also means a couple of Day and Night. Are the two couples same or different? If Ahanî be regarded as synonymous with Uṣhâsâ-naktâ or Aho-râtre, then the two couples would be identical;

c9.20.2

otherwise different. Fortunately, Rig. IV, 55, 3, furnishes us with the means of solving this difficulty. There Uṣhâsâ-naktâ and Ahanî are separately invoked to grant protection to the worshipper, and the separate invocation clearly proves that the two couples are two separate dual deities, though each of them represents a couple of Day and Night.¹ Prof. Max Muller has noticed this difference between Uṣhâsâ-naktâ and Ahanî or the two Ahans; but he does not seem to have pushed it to its logical conclusion. If all the 360 days and nights of the year were of the same class as with us, there was no necessity of dividing them into two representative couples as Uṣhâsâ-naktâ and *Ahani*. The general description "dark, bright and of various lengths" would have been quite sufficient to denote all the days and nights of the year. Therefore, if the distinction between *Ushâsâ-naktâ* and *Ahani*, made in IV, 55, 3, is not to be ignored, we must find out an explanation of this distinction;

c9.20.3

and looking to the character of days and nights at different places on the surface of the earth from the Pole to the Equator, the only possible explanation that can be suggested is that the year spoken of in these passages was a circum-Polar year, made up of one long day and one long night, forming one pair, and a number of ordinary days and nights of various lengths, which, taking a single day and night as the type, can be described as the second couple, "bright, dark and of varying lengths." There is no other place on the surface of the earth where the description holds good. At the Equator, we have only equal days and nights throughout the year, and they can be represented by a single couple "dark and bright, but always of the same length." In fact, instead of *virûpe* the pair would be *sarûpe*. Between the Equator and the Arctic Circle, a day and night together never exceed twenty-four hours, though there may be a day of 23 hours, and a night of one hour and vice versa, as we approach the Arctic Circle. In this case, the days of the year will have to be represented by a typical couple, "dark and bright, but of various lengths, *virûpe*." But as soon as we cross the Arctic Circle and go into "The Land of the Long Night," the above description requires to be amended by adding to the first couple, another couple of the long day and the long night, the lengths of which would vary according to latitude.

c9.20.4

This second couple of the long day and the long night, which match each other, will have also to be designated as *virûpe*, with this difference, however, that while the length of days and nights in the temperate zone would vary at the same place, the length of the long night and the long day would not vary at one and the same place, but only at different latitudes. Taking a couple of Day and Night, as representing the days and nights of the year, we shall have, therefore, to divide the different kinds of diurnal changes over the globe into three classes:—