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

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 377
with geological evidence but is, on the contrary, fully
and unexpectedly confirmed by it. Secondly, the description
that "a year seemed only as a day" to the inhabitants of
this Vara, and that the sun and stars "rose only once a year
therein," serves, in an unmistakable manner, to fix the geo-
graphical position of this Vara in the region round about
the North Pole; for nowhere on the surface of the earth
can we have a year-long day-and-night except at the Pole.
Once the position of Yima's Vara is thus fixed the posi-
tion of the Airyana Vaêjo is at once determined; for Yima's
Vara, as stated in the Mainyô-i-khard, must obviously be
located in the Airyana Vaêjo. Here is, therefore, another
argument for locating the Airyana Vaêjo in the extreme north
and not to the west of the ancient Iran, as Spiegel, Darme-
steter and others have done. For whether Yima's Vara
be real or mythical, we cannot suppose that the knowledge of
a year-long day and of the single rising of the sun during the
whole year was acquired simply by a stretch of imagination,
and that it is a mere accident that it tallies so well with the
description of the Polar day and night. The authors of the
Fargard may not have themselves witnessed these phenomena,
but there can be no doubt that they knew these facts by
tradition; and if so, we must suppose that their remote
ancestors must have acquired this knowledge by personal
experience in their home near the North Pole. Those that
locate the Airyana Vaêjo in the extreme east of the Ira-
nian highland try to account for ten months winter therein
by assuming that a tradition of a decrease in the earth's
temperature was still in the mind of the author of this
Fargard, or that the altitude of the table-land, where the
Oxus and the Jaxartes take their rise, was far higher in
ancient times than at present, thereby producing a cold
climate. Both these explanations are however artificial and
unsatisfactory. It is true that a high altitude produces a-