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

157
his decayed power in the winter. But with the expression “like the sun
dwelling in darkness” before us, in the legend of Vandana (I, 117, 5),
we must make these legends refer not merely to the decayed power
of the sun in winter, but to his actual sinking below the horizon for
some time. Bearing this in mind, let us try to see what inference we
can deduce, so far as the subject in hand is concerned, from the
legend of Dîrghatamas.
The statement in the myth or legend, which is most important
for our purpose, is contained in I, 158, 6. The verse may be literally
translated as follows: — “Dîrghatamas, the son of Mamatâ, having
grown decrepit in the tenth yuga, becomes a Brahman charioteer of
the waters wending to their goal.”* The only expressions which
require elucidation in this verse are “in the tenth yuga,” and “waters
wending to their goal.” Otherwise the story is plain enough.
Dîrghatamas grows old in the tenth yuga, and riding on waters, as the
Mahâbhârat story has it, goes along with them to the place which is
the goal of these waters. But scholars are not agreed as to what yuga
means. Some take it to mean a cycle of years, presumably five as in
the Vedânga-Jyotisha, and invest Dîrghatamas with infirmity at the
age of fifty. The Petersburg Lexicon would interpret yuga, wherever it
occurs in the يig-Veda, to mean not, “a period of time,” but “a
generation,” or “the relation of descent from a common stock”; and it
is followed by Grassmann in this respect. According to these scholars
the phrase “in the tenth yuga” in the above verse would, therefore,
signify “in the tenth generation” whatever that may mean. Indeed,
there seems to be a kind of prejudice against interpreting yuga as
meaning “a period of time” in the يig-Veda, and it is therefore,
necessary to examine the point at some length in this place. That the
word yuga by itself means “a period of time” or that, at any rate, it is
one of its meanings goes without saying. Even the
* Rig. I, 158, 6, — दीघतमा मामतयो े जजवान ु ु दशमे यगु े । अपामथ यतीनां बरा भवित
सारिथः ॥