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

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 387

and snow as described in the Avesta. Nevertheless it seems
that the Indian story of deluge refers to the same catastrophe
as is described in the Avesta and not to any local deluge of
water or rain. For though the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa men-
tions only a flood (aughaḥ), the word prâleya, which Pâṇinî
(VII, 3, 2) derives from pralaya (a deluge), signifies 'snow,'
'frost,' or 'ice' in the later Sanskrit literature. This indi-
cates that the connection of ice with the deluge was not ori-
ginally unknown to the Indians, though in later times it seems
to have been entirely overlooked. Geology informs us that
every Glacial epoch is characterised by extensive inundation
of the land with waters brought down by great rivers flowing
from the glaciated districts, and carrying an amount of sand
or mud along with them. The word aughaḥ, or a flood, in the
Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa may, therefore, be taken to refer to
such sweeping floods flowing from the glaciated districts, and
we may suppose Manu to have been carried along one of these
in a ship guided by the fish to the sides of the Himâlaya
mountain. In short, it is not necessary to hold that the ac-
count in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa refers to the water-deluge
pure and simple, whatever the later Purâṇas may say; and if
so, we can regard the Brahmanic account of deluge as but a
different version of the Avestic deluge of ice. It was once
suggested that the idea of deluge may have been introduced
into India from an exclusively Semitic source; but this
theory is long ago abandoned by scholars, as the story of the
deluge is found in such an ancient book as the Shatapatha
Brâhmaṇa, the date of which has now been ascertained to be
not later than 2500 B. C., from the fact that it expressly as-
signs to the Kṛittikâs, or the Pleiades, a position in the due
east. It is evident, therefore, that the story of the deluge is
Aryan in origin, and in that case the Avestic and the Vedic
account of the deluge must be traced to the same source. It
may also be remarked that Yima, who is said to have