The Arctic Home in the Vedas c9.33

Language: English

c9.33.1

The fourth, fifth and the sixth verses all refer to the destruction of Vritra's forts, the chastisement of Uṣas and the placing of the moons in the heaven. But the third verse quoted above is alone important for our purpose. The words are simple and easy, and the verse may be thus translated, "The sun unyoked his car in the midst of heaven; the Ârya found a counter-measure (pratimânam) for the Dâsa. Indra, acting with Ṛijishvan, overthrew the solid forts of Pipru, the conjuring Asura." It is the first half of the verse that is relevant to our purpose. The sun is said to have unyoked his car, not at sunset, or on the horizon, but in the midst of heaven, there to rest for some time. There is no uncertainty about it, for the words are so clear; and the commentators have found it difficult to explain this extraordinary conduct of the sun in the midway of the heavens. Mr. Griffith says that it is, perhaps, an allusion to an eclipse, or to the detention of the sun to enable the Aryans to complete the overthrow of their enemies. Both of these suggestions are, however, not satisfactory. During an eclipse the sun is covered with the dark shadow of the earth, and is not besides stationary. The description that the sun unyoked his car in the mid-heaven cannot, therefore, apply to the eclipsed sun.

c9.33.2

As regards the other suggestion, *viz.*, that the sun remained stationary for a while to allow his favourite race, the Aryans, to overthrow their enemies, it seems to have had its origin in the Biblical passage (Joshua, X, 12, 13), where the sun is said to have stood still, at the word of Joshua, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. But there is no authority for importing this Biblical idea into the Rig-Veda. Indra's exploits are described in a number of hymns in the Rig-Veda, but in no other hymn he is said to have made the sun stand still for the Aryans. We must, therefore, reject both the explanations suggested by Griffith. Sâyaṇa gets over the difficulty by interpreting the phrase, *ratham vi amuchat madhye divaḥ*, as meaning that "the sun loosened (*vi amuchat*) his carriage, that is, set it free to travel, towards the middle (*madhye*) of heaven, (*ratham prasthânâya vi-muktavân*)." Sâyaṇa's meaning, therefore, is that when Indra obtained compensation from Vṛitra, he let loose the chariot of the sun to travel towards the midst of the sky. But the construction is evidently a strained one. The verb *vi much* is used in about a dozen places in the Rig-Veda in relation to horses, and everywhere it means to 'unharness,' 'unyoke,' or 'separate the horses from the carriage for rest;' and even Sâyaṇa has interpreted it in the same way.

c9.33.3

Thus *vi-muchya* is explained by him as *rathât vishlishya* in I, 104, 1, and *rathât vi-muchya* in III, 32, 1, and *rathât visrijya* in X, 160, 1, (also compare I, 171, 1; I, 177, 4; VI, 40, 1). The most natural meaning of the present verse would, therefore, be that the 'sun unyoked his carriage.' But even supposing that *vi much* can be interpreted to mean 'to loosen for travel,' the expression would be appropriate only when there is an antecedent stoppage or slow motion of the sun. The question why the sun stopped or slackened his motion in the midst of the sky would, therefore, still remain unsolved. The phrase *divaḥ madhye* naturally means ‘in the midst of the sky,’ and cannot be interpreted to mean ‘towards the mid-heaven.’ Of course if the sun was below the horizon, we may describe him as having loosened his horses for travel as in V, 62, 1; but even there the meaning seems to be that the horses rested at the place. In the present case the sun is already in the midst of heaven, and we cannot take him below the horizon without a palpable distortion of meaning. Nor can we properly explain the action of retaliation (*pratimânam*), if we accept Sâyaṇa’s interpretation. We must, therefore, interpret the first half of the verse to mean that “the sun unyoked his carriage in the midst of heaven.” There is another passage in the Rig-Veda which speaks of the sun halting in the midst of heaven.

c9.33.4

In VII, 87, 5, the king Varuṇa is said to have made “the golden (sun) rock like a swing in the heaven” (*chakre divi preṅkhâm hiraṇmayam*), clearly meaning that the sun swayed backwards and forwards in the heaven being visible all the time, (cf. also VII, 88, 3). The idea expressed in the present verse is exactly the same, for even within the Arctic regions the sun will appear as swinging only during the long continuous day, when he does not go below the horizon once every twenty-four hours. There is, therefore, nothing strange or uncommon in the present verse which says that “the sun unyoked his carriage for some time in the midst of the sky;” and we need not be impatient to escape from the natural meaning of the verse. A long halt of the sun in the midst of the heaven is here clearly described, and we must take it to refer to the long day in the Arctic region. The statement in the second line further supports the same view. European scholars appear to have been misled, in this instance, by the words *Ârya* and *Dâsa*, which they are accustomed to interpret as meaning the Aryan and the non-Aryan race. But though the words may be interpreted in this way in some passages, such is not the case everywhere. The word Dâsa is applied to Indra’s enemies in a number of places. Thus Sambara is called a Dâsa (IV, 30, 14), and the same adjective is applied to Pipru in VIII, 32, 2, and to Namuchi in V, 30, 7.

c9.33.5

Indra is said to inspire fear into the Dâsa in X, 120, 2, and, in II, 11, 2, he is described as having rent the Dâsa, who considered himself immortal. In the verse under consideration Indra’s victory over Pipru is celebrated, and we know that Pipru is elsewhere called a Dâsa. It is, therefore, quite natural to suppose that the words Arya and Dâsa, in the above verse, refer to Indra and Pipru, and not to the Aryan and the non-Aryan race. The exploits described are all heavenly, and it jars with the context to take a single sentence in the whole hymn as referring to the victory of the Aryan over the non-Aryan race. There is again the word pratimâna (lit. counter-measure), which denotes that what has been done is by way of retaliation, a sort of counter-poise or counter-blast, with a view to avenge the mischief done by Dâsa. A battle between the Aryans and the non-Aryans cannot be so described unless a previous defeat of the Aryans is first alluded to. The plain meaning of the verse, therefore, is that the sun was made to halt in the midst of the sky, producing a long day, and Indra thus found a counter-poise for Dâsa, his enemy. For we know that darkness is brought on by the Dâsa, and it is he who brings on the long night; but if the Dâsa made the night long, Indra retaliated or counter-acted by making the day as long as the night of the Dâsa.

c9.33.6

The long night of the Arctic regions is, we have seen, matched by the long day in those regions, and the present verse expresses the same idea of matching the one by the other. There is no reference to the victory of the Aryan race over the non-Aryans, or anything of that kind as supposed by Western scholars. Sâyaṇa, who had no historic theories to mislead him, has rightly interpreted Ârya and Dâsa in this verse as referring to Indra and his enemy; but he, in his turn, has misinterpreted, as shewn above, the first half of the verse in regard to the sun's long halt in the midst of the sky. The misinterpretation of the second hemistich comes from Western scholars, like Muir, who interprets Ârya, as meaning the Aryans and Dâsa, the non-Aryans. This shows how in the absence of the true key to the meaning of a passage, we may be led away by current theories, even where the words are plain and simple in themselves.