The Arctic Home in the Vedas c9.20.2

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;