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

368 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
sufficiently advanced to establish the existence of a mild cli-
mate round about the North pole in ancient times. It was
probably this difficulty which stared Zend scholars in the
face when they declined to place the Airyana Vaêjo in the far
north, in spite of the plain description clearly indicating its
northernmost position. Happily the recent discoveries in
Geology and Archæology have not only removed this diffi-
culty by establishing, on scientific grounds, the existence of a
warm and genial climate near the North Pole in inter-glacial
times, but have proved that the Polar regions were invaded,
at least twice, by glaciation which destroyed their genial cli-
mate. Thus it is now a settled scientific fact that the Arctic
regions were once characterised by warm and short winters
and genial and long summers, a sort of perpetual spring, and
that this condition of things was totally upset or reversed
by the advent of the Glacial period which made winters long
and severe and summers short and cold. The description of
the climatic changes introduced by Angra Mainyu into the
Airyana Vaêjo is, therefore, just what a modern geologist
would ascribe to the Glacial epoch ; and when the description
is so remarkably and unexpectedly corroborated by the latest
scientific researches, I fail to see on what ground we can
lightly set it aside as mythical or imaginary. If some Zend
scholars have done so in the past, it was because geological
knowledge was not then sufficiently advanced to establish the
probability of the description contained in the Avesta. But
with new materials before us which go to confirm the Avestic
description of the Airyana Vaêjo in every detail, we shall be
acting unwisely if we decline to revise the conclusions of Zend
scholars arrived at some years ago on insufficient materials.
When we look at the question from this point of view, we
have to place the site of the Airyana Vaêjo in the Arctic re-
gions, where alone we can have a winter of ten months at the
present day. We can escape from such a conclusion only by