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

410 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
-orthodox of men, for it supposes all the races of mankind
traceable to a single non-simian origin, and the Bible leaves it
an open question where exactly and when the Garden of Eden
-flourished.'"*
I have very little to add to the views expressed in the above
passages ; in fact Prof. Rhys has left us little to be done so far
as Celtic and Teutonic myths are concerned. The way in which
he proceeds to analyze the legends and show that they all point
to a primeval home in the Arctic regions is at once interesting
and instructive. He first clears the ground by ascribing the
different prophecies occuring in the legends not to any fore-know-
ledge on the part of the poet, but to the simple fact that the
events spoken of were of annual occurrence, and as they were
known to recur regularly it was not difficult to adopt the language
of prophecy and predict the happening of these events in future.
He then collects a number of facts which go to prove that gods
and heroes were afflicted with some disability of distress at
certain intervals of time, which rendered them incapable to
carry on the annual struggle with the powers of evil and darkness.
The only physical phenomena corresponding to such distress of
the solar hero, or the sun, are his daily setting, the decay of his
powers in winter and his disappearing below the horizon for
some months in the Polar regions. As the struggle between
the Sun-god and his enemies is, as stated above, determined to
be annual, the daily setting of the sun does not come within the
range of the possible explanations of the temporary distress of
the sun-god. Out of the two remaining physical phenomena,
the decay of sun's power in winter would have answered the
purpose, had there been no legends or myths which indi-
cated the cessation of the vicissitude of day and night for
some time. I have pointed out before how Prof. Max
Muller, who has followed the same method of interpretation

• Rhys'. Hibbert Lectures, pp. 636-7.