6 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 94 



yad dtirhanayuvani .... diihitaram divah) ,^ who is described as 

 " flowing away " (sarat) from her ruined chariot ; viz. that chariot 

 that she, " the Daughter of Heaven, and Mistress of the Universe, 

 yokes afar {pardkat, i. e. ah intra) and straightway visits the Five 

 Homes, to look upon the restless ways of the Kindreds " (VH, 75, 4); 

 Similarly, in X, 138, 5, Usas is afraid of Indra's bolt, and goes her 

 way {akramat), abandoning her lovely chariot, cf. H, 15, 6. Agni 

 is commonly called " ravisher " or " spoiler " of Dawn {iiso na 

 jarah) ; this has usually been rendered as " lover of Dawn ", but 

 jar a, from jr " to inveterate ", even when it means " lover ", has 

 always a somewhat sinister significance, and in the passages referred 

 to, Yaska's and Sayana's equations of jdra with jarayitr are certainly 

 correct, in this sense, that with the rising of the Sun, the Dawns 

 are always thought of as retiring and departing, to join the former 

 Dawns, e. g. in I, 113, 10. In VH, 6, 5, Agni, "driving olt the 

 Nights (nirudhya nahitsah), makes the Dawns to be consorts of the 

 Arya " {aryapatmr usasas cakdra; Sayana equates arya with si'irya).'"' 

 In I, 123, I, Daksina, synonymous with Usas in the same hymn, 

 "rises from the dark night as herself an Arya" {krsudd ttd asthdt 

 arya), where it is, of course, to be understood that she had been 

 anaryd; it may be noted that Daksina is Indra's mother by Yajna 

 in Taittmya Samhitd, VI, i, 3, 6, and that Daksina is Vac, whose 

 asura origin is notorious. 



Dawn precedes the actual day, and must not delay, lest the Sun 

 scorch her like a thief or enemy (V, 79, 9). It is not until the 

 thirty parts of the whole twenty-four hours have elapsed that she 

 becomes again an auspicious power, meanwhile as in VI, 59, 6, b, 

 " moving headless, with babbling tongue, she descends thirty grades " 

 {hitvl siro jilivyd vavadac carat trUhsat padd ny akraiiut; hitvl siro 

 combined with ih., a, apdd, cited below, giving us the analogy to Agni, 

 apad aslrso guhamdno antd in IV, i, ii) ; and similarly in I, 123, 8, 

 where the sisters are said to "traverse thirty leagues {trinisataiii 

 yojandni), alternately" — to reappear in due course, paritakmydydui, 

 for the " ancient Dawn is born again and again (punah punar jdya- 

 mana purdni) decking herself with the selfsame hue " (saindnaui 

 varnam^^ abhi smiibJiamdnd, I, 92, 10). Meanwhile the Sun, through- 

 out the thirty stations of her decline, rules supreme {triiiisad dhdma 

 vi raijati, X, 189, 3). 



What is then the status of the Dawn ab intra, in the Night, as Night, 

 and especially at the end of the Night's course (parifakniydydui) , as 

 in V, 30, 14, where " Night at the end of her course shines-forth-as- 

 Dawn (auccJwf) at the coming of the Debt-collector " king of the Glit- 



