The Vedic fathers of geology

56 Tae Vepic Farunrs or GEOLOGY.

Arjikiya, as he says:— (HetHersietat fSarsत्याहुः .... | Fe To To ate 2.24). This, therefore, is not an imaginary river, but a real terrestrial river of the Punjab, as Max Muller distinctly says that, “It was probably on the Vipash (later Vipasha), a northwestern tributary of the Sutledge, that Alexander’s army turned back. The river was then called Hyphasis ; Pliny calls it Hypasis, a “Very fair approximation to the Vedic Vipash, which means ‘unfettered’. Its modern name is “Bias or Bejah.” (What Can India Teach us ? 17 ‘Edition 1883). Moreover, if we bear in mind the celebrated and the oft-quoted verses इमं से गंगे यथने सरस्वति... ॥५॥ तृष्टासया -.-. । त्वं सिधो कुभया गोमतीं SE Hera सरथं याभिरीयसे gu R. V. X.75), it will certainly be easily perceived that the Poets of the Rig-Veda-period had, by all means, a wider geographical horizon than has usually been supposed, and had, therefore, very accurate Knowledge of the Land of the Seven Rivers. Thus, to come nearer home, it seems eyident that the Dawn ( उषस्‌ ) also, was, dike the rain-waters, first observed in her dazzling splendour in the region of the river Vipash-the modern Beeas—by our primitive ancestors, who had also seen her, for the Jirst time disappearing and absorbed in the unsurpassed refuleence of the Sun that was coming onthe horizon, in