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

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 463
Vedas may, very well, be said to do the same. Thus from
whatever side we approach the question, we are irresistibly led,
by internal as well as external evidence, to the conclusion that
the subject matter of the Vedic hymns is ancient and inter-
glacial, and that it was incorporated into the Vedic hymns in
post-Glacial times by Ṛiṣhis who inherited the same in the
shape of continuous traditions from their inter-glacial fore-
fathers.
There are many other points in Vedic interpretation,
or in Vedic and Purâṇic mythology, which are elucidated, or,
we may even say, intelligently and rationally explained for
the first time, by the theory of the Arctic home in inter-
glacial times. For instance, we can now easily account for
the disappointment of those Western scholars, who, when
the Vedas became first known to them, expected to find
therein the very beginnings of the Aryan civilisation or the
out-pourings of the Aryan mind as it first became impressed
with awe and wonder by the physical phenomena or the
workings of natural elements and looked upon them as divine
manifestations. Our theory now shows very clearly that though
the Vedas are the oldest records of the Aryan race, yet the
civilisation, or the characteristics and the worship of the deities
mentioned therein did not originate with the Vedic bards, but
was derived by them from their inter-glacial fore-fathers and
preserved in the forms of hymns for the benefit of posterity;
and if any one wants to trace the very beginnings of the Aryan
civilisation he must go back beyond the last Glacial period, and
see how the ancestors of the Aryan race lived and worked in
their primeval Polar home. Unfortunately we have very few
materials for ascertaining the degree of this civilisation. But
we think we have shewn that there are grounds to hold that
the inter-glacial Aryan civilisation and culture must have
been of a higher type than what it is usually supposed to be;