The Arctic Home in the Vedas c9.33.4

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.