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

122
sense. It is evident, therefore, that the “bodies” or “forms” intended to
be denoted by these words must be different from the two-fold
character of the couple as shining and dark and if so, the phrases
vishurûpe virûpe or nânâ vapûmshi used in connection with the
couple of Day and Night must be taken to mean something different
from “bright and dark,” if these expressions are not to be considered
as superfluous or tautological. Sâyana interprets these phrases as
referring to different colors (rûpa), like black, white, &c., and some of
the Western scholars seem to have adopted this interpretation. But I
cannot see the propriety of assigning different colors to Day and
Night. Are we to suppose that we may have sometimes green- violet,
yellow or blue days and nights? Again though the word rûpa lends
itself to this construction, yet vapûmshi cannot ordinarily be so
understood. The question does not, however, seem to have attracted
the serious attention of the commentators; so that even Griffith
translates vishurûpe by “unlike in hue” in I, 123, 7. The Naktoshâsâ
are described as virûpe also in I, 113, 3, but there too Sâyana gives
the same explanation. It does not appear to have occurred to any one
that the point requires any further thought. Happily, in the case of يig.
I, 113, 3, we have, however, the advantage of consulting a
commentator older than Sâyana. The verse occurs in the Uttarârchika
of Sâma-Veda (19, 4, 2, 3), Mâdhava in his Vivarana, a commentary
on the Sâma-Veda explains virûpe thus: — “In the Dakshinâyana
during the year there is the increase of night, and in the Uttarâyana of
day.”* Mâdhava’s Vivarana is a scarce book, and I take the above
quotation from an extract from his commentary given in a footnote to
the Calcutta edition of the Sâma-Veda Samhitâ, with Sâyana’s
commentary, published by Satyavrata Sâmashramî, a learned Vedic
scholar of Calcutta. It is
* See Sâma-Veda, Cal. Ed. Utta. 19, 4, 2, 3.