See asiya vamiya sukta for example.
Read that. Superb. Very heavy on symbolism. Very difficult to understand. Here is what Tilak says about it:
"An independent corroboration of the conclusion we have drawn from the legends of the Dashagvas and Dîrghatamas is furnished by the number of seasons mentioned in certain Vedic texts. A period of sunshine of ten months followed by along night of two months can well be described as five seasons of two months each, followed by the sinking of the sun into the waters below the horizon; and as a matter of fact we find the year so described in I, 164, 12, a verse which occurs also in the Atharva Veda (IX, 9, 12) with a slight variation and in the Prashnopaniṣhad I, 11. It may be literally translated as follows: — “The five-footed (pañcha-pâdam) Father of twelve forms, they say, is full of watery vapors (purṣîhiṇam) in the farther half (pare ardhe) of the heaven. These others again say (that) He the far-seeing (vichakṣhaṇam) is placed on the six-spoked (ṣhaḍ-are) and seven-wheeled (car), in the nearer (upare scil. ardhe) half of the heaven.”* The adjective “far-seeing” is made to qualify “seven-wheeled” instead of “He” in the Atharva Veda, (vichakṣhaṇe) being in the locative case while Shaṇkarâchârya in his commentary on the Prashnopaniṣhad splits upare into two words u and pare taking u as an expletive. But these readings do not materially alter the meaning of the verse. The context everywhere clearly indicates that the year-god of twelve months (âkṛiti X, 85, 5) is here described. The previous verse in the hymn (Ṛig. I, 164) mentions “The twelve-spoked wheel, in which 720 sons of Agni are established,” a clear reference to a year of twelve months with Tao days and nights. There is, therefore, no doubt that the passage contains the description of the year and the two halves of the verse, which are introduced by the phrases “they say’” and “others say,” give us two opinions about the nature of the year-god of twelve forms.
Let us now see what these opinions are. Some say that the year-god is five-footed (pañcha-pâdam), that is divided into five seasons; and the others say that he has a six-spoked car, or six seasons. It is clear from this that the number of seasons was held to be five by some and six by others in early days. Why should there be this difference of opinion? The Aitareya Brâhmaṇa I, 1, (and the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ I, 6, 2, 3) explains that the two seasons of Hemanta and Shishir together made a joint season, thereby reducing the number of seasons from six to five. But this explanation seems to be an afterthought, for in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa, XIII, 6, 1, 10, Varṣhâ and Sharad are compounded for this purpose instead of Hemanta and Shishir. This shows that in the days of the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ and the Brâhmaṇas it was not definitely known or settled which two seasons out of six should be compounded to reduce the number to five; but as five seasons were sometimes mentioned in the Vedas, some explanation was felt to be necessary to account for the smaller number and such explanation was devised by taking together any two consecutive seasons out of six and regarding them as one joint season of four months. But the explanation is too vague to be true; and we cannot believe that the system of compounding airy two seasons according to one’s choice was ever followed in practice. We must, therefore, give up the explanation as unsatisfactory and see if the verse from the Ṛig-Veda, quoted above, enables us to find out a better explanation of the fact that the seasons were once held to be five. Now the first half of this verse describes the five-footed father as full of watery vapors in the farther part of heaven, while the year of six-spoked car is said to be far-seeing. In short, purîṣhiṇam (full of, or dwelling in waters) in the first line appears to be a counterpart of vichakṣhaṇam (far-seeing) in the second line.
This is made clear by the verses which follow. Thus the 13th verse in the hymn speaks of “the five-spoked wheel” as remaining entire and unbroken though ancient; and the next or the 14th verse says that “the unwasting wheel with its felly revolves; the ten draw (it) yoked over the expanse. The sun’s eye goes covered with rajas (aerial vapor); all worlds are dependent on him.”* Comparing this with the 11th verse first quoted, it may be easily seen that purîṣhiṇam (full of watery vapors) and rajasâ âvṛitam (covered with rajas) are almost synonymous phrases and the only inference we can draw from them is that the five-footed year-god or the sun event to dwell in watery vapors i.e., became invisible, or covered with darkness and (rajas), for some time in the farther part of the heaven. The expression that “The ten, yoked, draw his carriage,” (also cf. Ṛig. IX, 63, 9) further shows that the five seasons were not made by combining any two consecutive seasons out of six as explained in the Brâhmaṇas (for in that case the number of horses could not be called ten), but that a real year of five seasons or ten months was here intended. When the number of seasons became increased to six, the year-god ceased to be purîṣhin (full of waters) and became vichakṣhaṇam or far-seeing. We have seen that the sun, as represented by Dîrghatamas, grew old in the tenth month and riding on aerial waters went into the ocean. The same .idea is expressed in the present verse which describes two different views about the nature of the year, one of five and the other of six seasons and contrasts their leading features with each other.
Thus pare ardhe is contrasted with upare ardhe in the second line, pañcha-pâdam (compare pacñhâre in the next verse, i.e. Ṛig-Veda I. 164, 13) with ṣhaḍ-are, and purîṣhinam with vichakṣhaṇam. In short, the verse under consideration describes the year either (1) as five-footed, and lying in waters in the farther part of heaven, or (2) as mounted on a six-spoked car and far-seeing in the nearer part of the heaven. These two descriptions cannot evidently apply to seasons in one and the same place, and the artifice of combining two consecutive seasons cannot be accepted as a solution of the question. Five seasons and ten months followed by the watery residence of the sun or dark nights, is what is precisely described in the first half of this passage (I, 164, 12), and, from what has been said hitherto, it will be easily seen that it is the Arctic year of ten months that is here described. The verse, and especially the contrast between purîṣhinam and vichakṣhaṇam, does not appear to have attracted the attention it deserves. Bu in the light of the Arctic theory the description is now as intelligible as any. The Vedic bards have here preserved for us the memory of a year of five seasons or ten months, although their year had long been changed into one of twelve months. The explanation given in the Brâhmaṇas are all so many post-facto devices to account for the mention of five seasons in the Ṛig-Veda, and I do not think we are bound to accept them when the fact of five seasons can be better accounted for. I have remarked before that in searching for evidence of ancient traditions we must expect to find later traditions associated with them, and Ṛig. I, 164, 12, discussed above, is a good illustration of this remark.
The first line of the verse, though it speaks of five seasons, describes the year as twelve-formed; while the second line, which deals with a year of six seasons or twelve months, speaks of it as “seven-wheeled,” that is made up of seven months or seven suns, or seven rays of the sun. This may appear rather inconsistent at the first sight; but the history of words in any language will show that old expressions are preserved in the language long after they have ceased to denote the ideas primarily expressed by them. Thus we now use coins for exchange, yet the word “pecuniary” which is derived from pecus = cattle, is still retained in the language; and similarly, we still speak of the rising of the sun, though we now know that it is not the luminary that rises, but the earth, by rotating round its axis, makes the sun visible to us. Very much in the same way and by the same process, expressions like saptâshva (seven horsed) or sapta-chakra (seven-wheeled), as applied to the year or the sun, must have become recognized and established as current phrases in the language before the hymns assumed their present form, and the Vedic bards could not have discarded them even when they knew that they were not applicable to the state of things before them. On the contrary, as we find in the Brâhmaṇas every artifice, that ingenuity could suggest, was tried to make these old phrases harmonize with the state of things then in, vogue, and from the religious or the sacrificial point of view it was quite necessary to do so. But when we have to examine the question from a historical stand-point, it is our duty to separate the relics of the older period from facts or incidents of the later period with which the former are sometimes inevitably mixed up; and if we analyze the verse in question (I, 164, 12) in this way we shall clearly see in it the traces of a year of ten months and five seasons.
The same principle is also applicable in other cases, as, for instance, when we find the Navagvas mentioned together with the seven vîpras in VI, 22, 2. The bards, who gave us the present version of the hymns, knew of the older or primeval state of things only by traditions, and it is no wonder if these traditions are occasionally mixed up with later events. On the contrary the preservation of so many traditions of the primeval home is itself a wonder, and it is this fact, which invests the oldest Veda with such peculiar importance from the religious as well as the historical point of view.
Lokamanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak — The Arctic Home in the Vedas — Chapter 7 (page 167 onwards)
