The Arctic Home in the Vedas c9.34

c9.34

We thus see that the Rig-Veda speaks of two different couples of Day and Night, one alone of which represents the ordinary days and nights in the year, and the second, the Ahanî, is a distinct couple by itself, forming, according to the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka, the right and the left hand side of the Year, indicating the long Arctic day and night. The Taittirîya Saṃhitâ again gives us in clear terms a tradition that in the former age the night was so long that men were afraid it would not dawn. We have also a number of expressions in the Rig-Veda denoting ‘long nights’ or ‘long and ghastly darkness,’ and also the ‘long journey’ of the sun. Prayers are also offered to Vedic deities to enable the worshipper to reach safely the end of the night, the ‘other boundary of which is not known.’ Finally we have an express text declaring that the sun halted in the midst of the sky and thereby retaliated the mischief brought on by Dâsa's causing the long night. Thus we have not only the long day and the long night mentioned in the Rig-Veda, but the idea that the two match each other is also found therein, while the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka tells us that they form the opposite sides of the Year-God. Besides the passages proving the long duration of the dawn, we have, therefore, sufficient independent evidence to hold that the long night in the Arctic regions and its counterpart the long day were both known to the poets of the Rig-Veda, and the Taittirîya Samhitâ distinctly informs us that it was a phenomenon of the former (purâ) age.