Artic Home of the Aryans by Lokamanya Bal ... - Mandhata Global

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through darkness”; and in VII, 67 a the poet exclaims: “The fire has
commenced to burn, the ends of darkness have been seen, and the
banner of the Dawn has appeared in the cast!”* The expression “ends
of darkness” (tamasah antâh) is very peculiar, and it would be a
violation of idiom to take this and other expressions indicating “long
darkness” to mean nothing more than long winter nights, as we have
them in the temperate or the tropical zone. As stated previously the
longest winter night in these zones must be, at best, a little short of
twenty-four hours, and even then these long nights prevail only for a
fortnight or so. It is, therefore, very unlikely that Vedic bards
perpetuated the memory of these long nights by making it a
grievance of such importance as to require the aid of their deities to
relieve them from it. There are other passages where the same
longing for the end of darkness or for the appearance of light is
expressed, and these cannot be accounted for on the theory that to
the, old Vedic bards night was as death, since they had no means
which a civilized person in the twentieth century possesses, of
dispelling the darkness of night by artificial illumination. Even the
modern savages are not reported to be in the habit of exhibiting such
impatience for the morning light as we find in the utterances of the
Vedic bards; and yet the latter were so much advanced in civilization
as to know the use of metals and carriages. Again not only men, but
Gods, are said to have lived in long darkness. Thus, in X, 124, I, Agni
is told that he has stayed “too long in the long darkness,” the phrase
used being jyog eva dîrgham tama âshayishtâh. This double phrase
jyog (long) dîrgham is still more inappropriate, if the duration of
darkness never exceeded that of the longest winter-night. In II, 2,
2, the same deity, Agni, is said to shine during “continuous nights,”
which, according to Max Müller, is
* Rig. I, 46, 6, — या नः पीपरदिना जयोितती तमिरः । तामे रासाथािमषम ॥
Rig. VII, 67, 2, — अशोिः सिमधानो अे उपो अौन तमसिदाः । अचित े
कतषसः े ु परािय ु े िदवो िहतजायमानः ु ॥