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

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 385
mythical land in the later Pârsî literature, somewhat like Mount
Meru, the seat of Hindu gods, in the Purâṇas. But for all that
we cannot deny that in the account of the Airyana Vaêjo in
the first two Fargards of the Vendidad we have a real historical
reminiscence of the Arctic cradle of the Iranian or the Aryan
races, and that the Fargard gives us a description of the countries
through which the Indo-Iranians had to pass before they settled
in the Hapta Heṇdu or on the floods of Rangha, at the
beginning of the post-Glacial period.
This story of the destruction of the original home by ice
may well be compared with the story of deluge found in the
Indian literature. The oldest of these accounts is contained
in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa (I, 8, 1, 1-10), and the same story is
found, with modifications and additions, in the Mahâbhârata
(Vana-Parvan, Ch. 187), and in the Mâtsya, the Bhâgavata and
other Purâṇas. All these passages are collected and discussed
by Muir in the first Volume of his Original Sanskrit Texts (3rd
Ed. pp. 181-220); and it is unnecessary to examine them at any
length in this place. We are concerned only with the Vedic
version of the story and this appears in the above mentioned
passage in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa. A fish is there represented
as having fallen into the hands of Manu along with water brought
for washing in the morning. The fish asked Manu to save him,
and in return promised to rescue Manu from a flood (aughaḥ)
that would sweep away (nirvodhâ) all creatures. The Brâhmaṇa
does not say when and where this conversation took place, nor
describes the nature of the calamity more fully than that it
was a flood. Manu preserved the fish first in a jar, then in a
trench, and lastly, by carrying him to the ocean. The fish
then warns Manu that in such and such a year (not definitely
specified) the destructive flood will come, and advises him to
construct a ship (nâvam) and embark in it when the flood
would arise. Manu constructs the ship accordingly, and when
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