Indian Antiquary Vol 41

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Devadatta Ramkrishna Bhandarkar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 32

28
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY
[FEBRUARY, 1912.
"(9) O sole Ashtakas, ye gave a sister to me hitherto without a sister ; ye speak the truth; listen to this prayer : jnst as ye are pleased with the behaviour of this (Indra), so may ye be pleased with mine; do not send me away to any one else!
(10) This all-knowing dawn stepped into my mind and has taken a firm hold of it; just as ye are pleased with this (Indra), so may ye be pleased with me; do not send me away to any one else ;
"(11) The five mornings, the five milkings, and the five seasons follow the cow with five names; the five quarters regulated by the fifteen-versed chant and possessed of the same characteristics as the five mornings follow this single light (the dawn).
“(12) (Оf the five mornings) the first is the womb of the dawn: one bears the magnificence of the waters; one presides at the rites addressed to the sun ; one presides over the heat ; and one the sun controls.
" (13) She that first shone out has become a cow at Yama's; let her, rich in milk, yield to us each further summer i
(14) Foremost among the lights, clothed in brilliant sple: dour, has arrived this illuminating dawn with various colours, like a flag of the sacrificial fire ; 0 ever-youthful dawn, conducive to the performance of unchanging rites, and grey with old age, thou hast arrived !
"(15) The wife of the seasons, the first (down) has arrived, leading the days and being the mother of creatures; though one, thou hast become many; free from old age, thou causest the rest to grow old."
Likewise the Tandyamahâbrahmana describes the Ekâshtaka as the wife of the year 1.9 2. एषा संवत्सरस्य पत्नी यदेकाष्टका. एतस्यां वा गतां रार्षि वसति. साक्षादेव तत्संवत्सरमारभ्य दीक्षते.
“What is called the Ekishtaka (dry) is the wife of the year ; when the night of this day arrires, (prajapati) lies with her. Hence, commencing with the true) beginning of the year, (sacrificers) observe the rite of initiation."
Tb9 important points to be particularly noticed in the above passages are (1) the beginning of the year, probably solar, on the eighth day of the dark half of the month Magha; (2) the designgtion of this day by such names as 'a cow,' dawn,' Prajapati's daughter, and Suryâ '; (3) the association or a kind of secret marriage of the dawn with three lights, the fire, the moon, and the sun, 48 pointed out by Sayaņa in his commentary on verse 1; (4) the birth of the days of the following year or cycle of years, as well as of Indra and Sôma from tha marriage of the dawn with the sun ; (5) the celebration of the dawn by the four well-known Sâma-chants; namely, the nine-versed chant, the fifteen-versel chant, the seventeen-versed chant, and the twenty-one-versed chant, each of which is, as we shall see, intended to signify as many intercalary days as the number of verses containel in it; (6) the destruction of enemies and Asuras brought about by Indra, the son of the dawn.
As regards the first point, it is true that we are told nowhere in the Vedas themselves that the word Ekashtaka means the eighth day of the dark half of the month of Magha; still, on the authority of Åpnstamba and other Satra-writers, who have defined it as such, we may take it to mean that particular day. From the next three points we have to understand that, at the commencement of every year or cycle of years, it was the usual custom with the Vedic poets to celebrate a symbolical marriage of the New Year's Day with the sun in order to enable the new year to beget its 720 children, i.e., its days and nights, or, in other words, to perpetuate an auspicious flow of time for themselves. This seems to be the sum and substance of the celebrated marriage hymns, in which the marriage procession of Surya or the dawn to be wedded to the sun is
B. V. 1, 164 10, 11.
* R. V. 2, 85; and A. V. xiv, 1, 2.