वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

THE NIGHT OF THE GODS. 71
this passage, indicates the existence of a Polar home in old days,
and I have set forth in the sequel the evidence on which I have
come to the above conclusion. There are several theories on
which the above statement in the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa can be
explained. We may regard it as the outcome of pure imagina-
tion, or of a metaphor expressing in figurative language a fact
quite different from the one denoted by the words used, or it may
be the result of actual observation by the writer himself or by
persons from whom he traditionally derived his information. It
may also be considered as based on astronomical calculations
made in later days, what was originally an astronomical inference
being subsequently converted into a real observed fact. The last
of these suppositions would have appeared probable, if the tradi-
tion had been confined only to the Post-Vedic literature, or mere-
ly to the astronomical works. But we cannot suppose that dur-
ing the times of the Brâhmaṇas the astronomical knowledge was
so far advanced as to make it possible to fabricate a fact by
mathematical calculation, even supposing that the Vedic poets
were capable of making such a fabrication. Even in the days of
Herodotus the statement that 'there existed a people who slept
for six months' was regarded 'incredible' (IV, 24); and we must,
therefore, give up the idea, that several centuries before He-
rodotus, a statement regarding the day or the night of the Gods
could have been fabricated in the way stated above. But all
doubts on the point are set at rest by the occurrence of an almost
identical statement in the sacred books of the Parsis. In the
Vendidad, Fargard II, para 40, (or, according to Spiegel, para
133), we find the sentence, Tae cha ayara mainyaente yat yare,
meaning "They regard, as a day, what is a year." This is but
a paraphrase of the statement, in the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa,