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

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 409

speaking Aryan languages. Nor can one forget that all the great
states of modern Europe, except that of the sick man, trace
their history back to the conquest of the Norsemen who set out
from the Scandinavian land, which Jordanis proudly calls officina
gentium and vagina nationum. But I doubt whether the teachings of
evolution may not force us to trace them still further towards the
North : in any case, the mythological indications to which your
attention has been called, point, if I am not mistaken, to some spot
within the Arctic Circle, such, for example, as the region where
Norse legend placed the Land of Immortality, somewhere in the
north of Finland and the neighbourhood of the White Sea. There
would, perhaps, be no difficulty in the way of supposing them to
have thence in due time descended into Scandinavia, settling,
among other places, at Upsala, which has all the appearance of
being a most ancient site, lying as it does on a plain dotted with
innumerable burial mounds of unknown antiquity. This, you will
bear in mind, has to do only with the origin of the early Aryans,
and not with that of the human race generally; but it would be
no fatal objection to the view here suggested, if it should be urged
that the mythology of nations beside the Aryans, such as that of
the Paphlagonians, in case of their not being Aryan, point like-
wise to the north; for it is not contended that the Aryans may
be the only people of northern origin. Indeed, I may add that
a theory was, not long ago, propounded by a distinguished French
savant, to the effect that the entire human race originated on
the shores of the Polar Sea at a time when the rest of the nor-
thern hemisphere was too hot to be inhabited by man. M.
de Saporta, for that is the learned writer's name, ex-
plains himself in clear and forcible terms; but how far
his hypothesis may satisfy the other students of this-
fascinating subject I cannot say. It may, however, be ob-
served in passing that it need not disconcert even the most