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

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sound, because in the يig-Veda VI, 9, 1, ahah is applied to the dark
as well as to the bright period of time, for the verse says, “there is a
dark day (ahah) and a bright day (ahah).” This shows that the Vedic
poets were in the habit of using the word ahah (day) to denote a
period of time devoid of the light of the sun.* Sâyana knew this, and
in his commentary on I, 185, 4, he expressly says that the word ahah
may include night. His real difficulty was different, viz., the
impossibility of supposing that a period of several days could have
elapsed between the first appearance of light and sunrise, and this
difficulty seems to have been experienced even by Western scholars.
Thus Prof. Ludwig materially adopts Sâyana’s view and interprets the
verse to mean that the splendors of the dawn were numerous, and
that they appear either before sunrise, or, if prâchînam be differently
interpreted “in the east” at the rising of the sun. Roth and Grassman
seem to interpret prâchînam in the same way. Griffith translates ahâni
by “mornings” and prâchînam by “aforetime.” His rendering of the
verse runs thus: — “Great is, in truth, the number of the mornings,
which were aforetime at the sun’s uprising; since thou, O Dawn, hast
been beheld repairing as to thy love, as one no more to leave him.”
But Griffith does not explain what he understands by the expression,
“a number of mornings which were aforetime at the sun’s uprising.”
The case is, therefore, reduced to this. The word ahan, of which
ahâni (days) is a plural form, can be ordinarily interpreted to mean (1)
a period of time between sunrise and sunset; (2) a nycthemeron, as
when we speak of 360 days of the year; or (3) a measure of time to
mark a period of 24 hours, irrespective of the fact whether the sun is
above or below the horizon, as when we speak of the long Arctic
night
* Rig. VI, 9, 1, — अह कमहरजन ु ं च िव वतत े रजसी वािभः े । वैानरो जायमानो न
राजावाितरोितषािमािस ं ॥ Also cf. T. S. III, 3, 4, 1.