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

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 443 .
Aryans were familiar with some metal, either copper or bronze,
as a medium of exchange. There are many other points si-
milar in character. But it is impossible to go further into
this subject in this place. I only want to point out the re-
servation with which we shall have now to accept the results
of Comparative Philology in forming our estimate of the
degree of culture reached by the primitive Aryans, and show
that when the primitive Aryan culture is carried back to the
inter-Glacial age, the hypothesis that primitive Aryans were
hardly better than the savage races of the present day at
once falls to the ground. If the civilisation of some Aryan
races in the Neolithic age appears to be inferior or imperfect
it must, therefore, be, as observed above, ascribed to relapse or
retrogression after the destruction of the ancient civilisation by
the Ice Age, and the necessarily hard and nomadic life led by
the people who survived the cataclysm. The Asiatic Aryans,
it is true, were able to preserve a good deal more of the origin-
al religion and culture, but it seems to be mainly due to their
having incorporated the old traditions into their religious
hymns or songs; and made it the exclusive business of a
few to preserve and hand down with religious scrupulosity these
prayers and songs to future generations by means of memory
specially trained and cultivated for the purpose. But even
then how difficult the task was can be very well seen from
the fact that a greater portion of the hymns and songs
originally comprised in the Avesta has been lost; and though
the Veda is better preserved, still what we have at present is
only a portion of the literature which is believed on good
grounds to have once been in existence. It may seem pass-
ing strange that these books should disclose to us the ex-
istence of an original Arctic home so many centuries after the
traditions were incorporated into them. But the evidence in the
foregoing pages shows that it is a fact; and if so, we must
hold that the Neolithic Aryan people in Europe were not as