Note also the widespread use of uru- loka- 'wide space' found eg in RV 1.93.6.(Agni and Soma have made wide space for the sacrifice) and RV 6.23.7 (I… - Hans Henrich Hock

The expression róma prthivyâh (1.65.8) ‘the body-hair of the earth’ ‘the plants’, suggests that the metaphor of tvac- as the ‘skin’ or surface of the earth was well established in the poetic language of the Rig-Veda.

Examples 6-9 contain references to black or dark or even black skin; and Geldner's interpretation is almost consistently a racial one. Closer examination, however, shows that either within the same line or verse , or in a closely neighboring one, we find references to the sun [RV 1.130.8, 4.6.13-14], to broad light [7.5.3-6], or to red or fiery beings [RV 3.31.21].

Further, elsewhere in the Rig-Veda the word tvac- ‘skin’, which occurs in [1.130.8 ], [9.41.1,5], and [9.73.5], does not necessarily designate human or animal skin, but may refer to the surface of the earth. Examples of this use occur at RV 1.79.3, 1.145.5, 10.68.4, and possibly 4.17.14. The expression róma prthivyâh (1.65.8) ‘the body-hair of the earth’ ‘the plants’, suggests that the metaphor of tvac- as the ‘skin’ or surface of the earth was well established in the poetic language of the Rig-Veda. In [1.130.8 ], [9.41.1,5], and [9.73.5], therefore, the reference may well be to the ‘dark earth’ or ‘dark world’ of the dasas/dasyus that contrasts with the urújyótih ‘broad light’ of the aryas, which is lit up by the sun or by ‘fiery beings’. In this regard note the close similarity between the expressions ájanayan mánave ksâm ‘he created land for Manu’ in [2.20.7] and urújyótir janáyann âryaya ‘making broad light for the arya’.