In the name Trita there is certainly a suggestion of the number _three_, and Macdonell, in his _Vedic Mythology_,[90] brings proof to show “that it was felt to have the meaning of the third”--that is, in order of sequence. [90] P. 69. But though the third, in this sense, does not actually carry with it the meaning of _third of a whole_; yet, to any one in search of an astronomical explanation of the Trita myth, the reiterated mention of the ten fingers of Trita quickly suggests the thought of a whole divided into three chief parts, each part containing ten lesser divisions--a whole therefore of thirty parts. Now the lunar month--in reality consisting of twenty-nine and a half solar days (with some fractions over)--is in Hindu calendrical usage divided into thirty equal portions of time called “tithis,” which are considered as lunar days; and here, as it would seem, we arrive at the physical basis of the Trita myth. Trita Aptya, or Trita in the waters (or of the waters), appears as the third part of the lunar month--the part during which the moon is to be seen in the celestial waters; and as Trita is so closely connected with Indra and Soma pavamana, that third part must have been the ten lunar days (five before and five after “the full”) during which the moon is at its brightest, and in the constellation Aquarius. If we think of Trita Aptya as a personification of the triumphant third of the moon’s course through the constellations of the Zodiac at the season of the summer solstice (see Plate XIII.), and if we remember that the moon during the ten lunar days contained in that “third” came to its full in Aquarius or in Pisces, sometimes indeed at the juncture of these constellations, we shall be able to understand much of the figurative language of the Veda, which associates Trita with the stormy Maruts, with the victories of Indra over Vritra, and with the effulgence of Soma pavamana. There is a legend concerning Trita not related but alluded to in the Rig Veda. This legend tells us that Trita was one of three brothers (Ekata, Dvita, and Trita), and that he was pushed into a well by his brothers, and over the mouth of the well a circular covering was placed with intent to keep Trita down and drown him. But through the circular covering the ever-triumphant Trita burst. Here there can be little doubt is a mythic description of the temporary disaster of eclipse overtaking the full moon of the summer solstice in the celestial waters of Aquarius or Pisces. The circular covering can be nothing else than the circular shadow of the earth covering the disc of the full moon, and Trita’s triumph may well remind us of the serene victoriousness of the moon when it has emerged from eclipse and rides unharmed along the sky.