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

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 369
denying the possibility that the passage in question contains
any traditional account of the ancient home of the Iranians;
and this course seems to have been adopted by some Zend
scholars of the day. But with the Vedic evidence, set forth and
discussed in the previous chapters, before us, we need not have
any of those apprehensions which have hitherto led many Zend
scholars to err on the side of caution and moderation. We have
seen that there are strong grounds for holding that the ancient
Indo-European year was a year of ten months followed by a long
night of two months; in other words, it was a year of ten sum-
mer months and two winter months, that is, exactly of the same
kind as the one which prevailed in the Airyana Vaêjo before the
happy land was invaded by the evil spirit. The word for
summer in Zend is hama, the same as Sanskrit samâ, which means
"a year" in the Rig-Veda. The period of ten summer months
mentioned in the Avesta would, therefore, mean a year of ten
months' sunshine, or of ten mânusha yugâ, followed by a long
wintry night of two months as described in the previous chapters.
It may be urged that the Vendidad does not say that the two
winter months were all dark, and we have, therefore, no
authority for converting two winter months into two months of
continuous darkness. A little reflection will, however, show
that the objection is utterly untenable. In order to have a winter
of ten months at the present day, we must place the Airyana
Vaêjo in the Arctic regions; and once we do so, a long night of
one, two or three months follows as a matter of course. This
long night will now fall in the middle of the winter of ten
months; but before the last Glacial epoch, or the invasion of
Angra Mainyu, when there was a summer of ten months in the
Arctic regions, the duration of the long night and that of the
winter of two months must have been co-extensive. That is an
important difference in the description of the paradise of the
Aryans, as it is at present and as it was before the last Glacial
24

370 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
epoch. The long night characterised these regions before the
Glacial period as it does at present. But when the winters were
short they corresponded with, and were confined only to, the
long night ; while at the present day, since the winter in the
Arctic regions lasts for ten months, the long night falls in the
middle of such winter. The description of the Airyana Vaêjo in
the Vendidad, therefore, naturally leads us to infer that ten
months sunshine or summer followed by two months dark winter
represented the climatic conditions of the place before the inva-
sion of Angra Mainyu, who converted summer into winter and
vice versa, by introducing ice and snow into the land. We have
already referred to the maximum period of a hundred nights
during which Tishtrya fought with Apaosha, and to the custom
of keeping the dead bodies in the house for two nights, three nights
or a month long in winter, until waters and light, which stood
still in winter, again began to flow or come up, showing that the
period was one of continuous darkness. These passages taken in
conjunction with the aforesaid description of the Airyana Vaêjo
clearly establish the fact that the paradise of the Iranians was
situated in the extreme north or almost near the North Pole, and
that it was characterised by long delightful summers, and short
and warm but dark winters, until it was rendered unfit for human
habitation by the invasion of Angra Mainyu, or the advent of the
Glacial epoch, which brought in severe winter and snow causing
the land to be covered with an icecap several hundreds of feet in
thickness.
There is one more point which deserves to be noticed in
this connection. We have seen that to the description of the
Airyana Vaêjo quoted above, the old Zend commentators have
added what is believed to be an inconsistent statement, viz., that
"There are seven months of summer and five of winter therein."
Dr. Haug thinks that the paragraph "The latter are cold as
to water etc." is also a later addition, and must, therefore,

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 371
be taken with the "five months of winter." But both Spiegel
and Darmesteter, as well as the commentator, are of opinion
that the phrases "And these are cold as to the water etc." from a
part of the original text, and must, therefore, be taken to refer to
the two summer months; and this view seems to be more
reasonable, for a later insertion, if any, is more likely to be a
short one than otherwise. The only addition to the original text
thus seems to be the statement "It is known that there are
seven months of summer and five of winter;" and this must be
taken as referring to the climatic conditions which obtained in
the Airyana Vaêjo before the invasion of Angra Mainyu, for the
latter reduced the duration of summer only to two months,
which again were cold to the water, the earth and the trees.
It has been shown above that as the Airyana Vaêjo was origin-
ally a happy land, we must suppose that the first climatic
conditions therein were exactly the reverse of those which were
introduced into it by Angra Mainyu; or, in other words, a sum-
mer of ten months and a winter of two months must be said to
have originally prevailed in this happy land. But the Zend
commentators have stated that there were seven months of
summer and five of winter therein; and this tradition appears to
have been equally old, for we read in the Bundahish (XXV, 10-14)
that "on the day Aûharmazd (first day) of Âvân the winter
acquires strength and enters into the world,...and on the auspi-
cious day Atarô of the month Dîn (the ninth day of the tenth
month) the winter arrives, with much cold, at Aîrân-vêj, and
until the end, in the auspicious month Spendarmad, winter
advances through the whole world; on this account they kindle
a fire everywhere on the day Âtarô of the month Din, and it
forms an indication that the winter has come." Here the five
months of winter in the Airyana Vaêjo are expressly mention-
ed to be Âvân, Âtarô, Dîn, Vohûman and Spendarmad; and
we are told that Rapîtvîn Gâh is not celebrated during this

372 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
period as Rapitvîn goes under-ground during winter and comes
up from below the ground in summer. The seven months of
summer are similarly described in the same book as extending
"from the auspicious day Aûharmazd (first) of the month Farvar-
dîn to the auspicious day Anîrân (last) of the month Mitrô,"
(XXV, 7). It seems from this account that the tradition of
seven months summer and five months winter in the Airyana
Vaêjo was an old tradition, and the Bundahish, in recording it,
gives us the climatic conditions in the ancient home and not, as
supposed by some, those which the writer saw in his own day.
For in the twentieth paragraph of the same chapter twelve
months and four seasons are enumerated, and the season of winter
is there said to comprise only the last three months of the year,
viz., Dîn, Vohûman and Spendârmad. I have shown elsewhere
that the order of months in the ancient Iranian calendar was
different from the one given in the Bundahish. But whatever the
order may be, the fact of the prevalence of seven months sum-
mer and five months winter in the Airyana Vaêjo seems to have
been traditionally preserved in these passages; and the old Zend
commentators on the Vendîdad appear to have incorporated it
into the original text, by way of, what may be called, a marginal
note, in their anxiety to preserve an old tradition. We have
thus two different statements regarding the climatic con-
ditions of the Airyana Vaêjo before it was invaded by
Angra Mainyu: one, that there were ten months of summer
and two of winter, the reverse of the conditions introduced
by Angra Mainyu; and the other, traditionally preserved
by the commentators, viz., that there were seven summer
months and five winter months therein. It is supposed that
the two statements are contradictory; and contradictory they
undoubtedly are so long as we do not possess the true key to
their interpretation. They are inconsistent, if we make the
Airyana Vaêjo the easternmost boundary of the ancient Iran;

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 373
but if the paradise is placed in the circumpolar regions in the
far north the inconsistency at once disappears, for then we
can have seven months summer and ten months summer at
the same time in the different parts of the original home of
the Iranians. We have seen in the discussion of the Vedic
evidence that the legend of Aditi indicates seven months sum-
mer or sun-shine, and the legend of the Dashagvas a sacrifi-
cial session, or a period of sun-shine, of ten months. It has
also been pointed out that between the North Pole and the
Arctic circle the sun is above the horizon for any period longer
than seven and less than twelve months according to the
latitude of the place. There is, therefore, nothing strange, ex-
traordinary or inconsistent, if we get two statements in the
Avesta regarding the duration of summer in the primeval
home ; and we need not assume that the commentators have
added the statement of seven months summer simply because
the description of two months summer and ten months winter
did not appear to them suitable to the first land of blessing.
It is not possible that they could have misunderstood the ori-
ginal text in such a way as to suppose that the climatic con-
ditions introduced by Angra Mainyu were the conditions
which obtained originally in the Airyāna Vaêjo. We must,
therefore, reject the explanation which tries to account for
this later insertion on the ground that it was made by per-
sons who regarded the description in the original as unsuited
to the first created happy land. If the original text is pro-
perly read and . interpreted, it gives us a summer of ten
months in the Airyāna Vaêjo before Angra Mainyu's invasion,
and the statement regarding the summer of seven months re-
fers to the same place and time. We have the same thing in
the Ṛig-Veda where the sun is once represented as having
seven rays and once as having ten rays, meaning seven
months and ten months of sun-shine, both of which are pos-
sible only in the Arctic regions. The two Avestic traditions

374 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
stated above must, therefore, be taken to represent the Arctic
climatic conditions prevailing in the ancient home in the far
north ; and the correctness of the explanation is proved by
the discussion in the foregoing chapters. With regard to the
custom of kindling a fire on the ninth day of Din or the tenth
month, noticed in the Bundahish, it seems to me that instead
of taking it to be an indication that winter “has come,” it is
better to trace its origin to the commencement of winter at
that time in some part of the original home ; for if a fire is to
be kindled there is greater propriety in kindling it to com-
memorate the commencement of winter rather than the expiry
of two out of five winter months. If the custom is so inter-
preted, it will imply that a year of nine months and ten days
was once prevalent in some part of the Aryan home, a conclu-
sion well in keeping with the ancient Roman year of ten
months. But apart from this suggestion, there is a striking
coincidence between the Vedic and the Avestic tradition in this
respect. According to the Bundahish (XXV, 20), the year is
divided into four seasons of three months each, Farvardîn,
Arḑavahisht and Horvadaḍ constituting the season of the
spring ; Tîr, Amerôdaḍ and Shatvaîrô the summer ; Mitrô,
Âvân and Âtarô the autumn ; and Dîn, Vohûman and Spen-
darmaḍ, the winter. The fortieth day of Sharad or autumn
would, therefore, represent the tenth day (Abân) of Avân ;
and the Vedic statement discussed in the ninth chapter, that
Indra's fight with Shambara commenced “ on the fortieth
day of Sharad ” agrees well (only with a difference of ten
days) with the statement in the Bundahish that the winter in
the Airyana Vaêjo commenced with the month of Âvân the
second month in autumn. We have thus a very close resem-
blance between the Vedic and the Avestic tradition about the
end of summer in the original Arctic home ; and the corres-
ponding Roman and Greek traditions have been previously
noticed. In. short, a year of seven or ten months sun-shine

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 375
can be traced back to the Indo-European period; and since its
double character can be explained only by placing the ori-
ginal home in the circumpolar regions, we are inevitably led
to the conclusion that the Airyana Vaêjo must also be placed
in the same region. The Avestic account is by itself plain
and intelligible, and the apparent inconsistencies would have
been explained in a natural way long ago, if Zend scholars
had not created unnecessary difficulties by transferring the
site of this Paradise to the east of the ancient Iran. Under
these circumstances it is needless to say which of the two theo-
ries regarding the position of the Airyana Vaêjo is correct;
for no one would accept a hypothesis which only enhances the
confusion, in preference to one which explains everything in a
natural and satisfactory manner,
We have so far discussed the passage in the first Fargard
which describes the climate of the Airyana Vaêjo. The
passage, even when taken by itself, is quite intelligible on
the Arctic theory; but in ascertaining the original climate
of the Airyana Vaêjo we supposed that it was the reverse
of the one introduced by the invasion of Angra Mainyu.
The second Fargard of the Vendidad, which is similar in
character to the first, contains, however, a passage, which
does away with the necessity of such assumption, by giving
us a graphic description of the actual advent of ice and
snow which ruined the ancient Iranian Paradise. This Far-
gard is really a supplement to the first and contains a more
detailed account of the Airyana Vaêjo and a description of the
paradisiacal life enjoyed there before Angra Mainyu afflicted
it with the plague of winter and snow. This is evident from
the fact that the coming of the severe winter is foretold in
this Fargard and Yima is warned to prepare against it;
while in the first Fargard the happy land is described as ac-
tually ruined by Angra Mainyu's invasion. Darmesteter
divides this Fargard into two parts, the first comprising the

376 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
first twenty (or according to Spiegel forty-one) paragraphs,
and the second the remaining portion of the Fargard. In the
first part Ahura Mazda is said to have asked king Yima the
ruler of the Airyāna Vaêjo, who is called Sruto Airyênê
vaêjahê, 'famous in Airyāna Vaêjo', to receive the law from
Mazda ; but Yima refused to become the bearer of the law
and he was, therefore, directed by Ahura Mazda to keep his
people happy and make them increase. Yima is accordingly
represented as making his men thrive and increase by keeping
away death and disease from them, and by thrice enlarging
the boundaries of the country which had become too narrow
for its inhabitants. Whether this fact represents a gradual
expansion of the oldest Aryan settlements in the Arctic home
we need not stop to inquire. The second part of the Fargard
opens with a meeting of the celestial gods called by Ahura
Mazda, and "the fair Yima, the good shepherd of high re-
nown in the Airyāna Vaêjo," is said to have attended this
meeting with all his excellent mortals. It was at this meet-
ing that Yima was distinctly warned by Ahura Mazda that
fatal winters were going to fall on the happy land and de-
stroy everything therein. To provide against this calamity the
Holy One advised Yima to make a Vara or enclosure, and
remove there the seeds of every kind of animals and plants for
preservation. Yima made the Vara accordingly, and the Far-
gard informs us that in this Vara the sun, the moon and the
stars “rose but once a year,” and that “a year seemed only as a day”
to the inhabitants thereof. The Fargard then closes with the
description of the happy life led by the inhabitants of this Vara
of which Zarathushtra and his son Urvatadnara are said to be
the masters or overseers.
Yima's Vara here described is something like Noah's
ark. But there is this difference between the two that while
the Biblical deluge is of water and rain, the Avestic deluge
is of snow and ice; and the latter not only does not conflict

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 377
with geological evidence but is, on the contrary, fully
and unexpectedly confirmed by it. Secondly, the description
that "a year seemed only as a day" to the inhabitants of
this Vara, and that the sun and stars "rose only once a year
therein," serves, in an unmistakable manner, to fix the geo-
graphical position of this Vara in the region round about
the North Pole; for nowhere on the surface of the earth
can we have a year-long day-and-night except at the Pole.
Once the position of Yima's Vara is thus fixed the posi-
tion of the Airyana Vaêjo is at once determined; for Yima's
Vara, as stated in the Mainyô-i-khard, must obviously be
located in the Airyana Vaêjo. Here is, therefore, another
argument for locating the Airyana Vaêjo in the extreme north
and not to the west of the ancient Iran, as Spiegel, Darme-
steter and others have done. For whether Yima's Vara
be real or mythical, we cannot suppose that the knowledge of
a year-long day and of the single rising of the sun during the
whole year was acquired simply by a stretch of imagination,
and that it is a mere accident that it tallies so well with the
description of the Polar day and night. The authors of the
Fargard may not have themselves witnessed these phenomena,
but there can be no doubt that they knew these facts by
tradition; and if so, we must suppose that their remote
ancestors must have acquired this knowledge by personal
experience in their home near the North Pole. Those that
locate the Airyana Vaêjo in the extreme east of the Ira-
nian highland try to account for ten months winter therein
by assuming that a tradition of a decrease in the earth's
temperature was still in the mind of the author of this
Fargard, or that the altitude of the table-land, where the
Oxus and the Jaxartes take their rise, was far higher in
ancient times than at present, thereby producing a cold
climate. Both these explanations are however artificial and
unsatisfactory. It is true that a high altitude produces a-

378 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
cold climate; but in the present instance the climate of the
Airyana Vaêjo was mild and genial before the invasion of
Angra Mainyu, and we must, therefore, suppose that the Iranian
table-land was not elevated at first, until Angra Mainyu upheaved
it and produced a cold climate. But the present altitude of the
plateau is not so great as to produce a winter of ten months,
and this requires us again to assume the submergence of this
land after the invasion of Angra Mainyu. Unfortunately there is
no geological evidence forth-coming to support the upheaval and
submergence of this land in the order mentioned above. But
even if such evidence were forthcoming, the explanation would
still fail to account why the inhabitants of Yima's Vara in the
Airyana Vaêjo regarded a year as a single day, a description,
which is true only at the North Pole. All attempts to locate
the primitive Airyana Vaêjo in a region other than the
circumpolar country must, therefore, be abandoned. The names
of mythical rivers and countries may have been transferred in
later times to real terrestrial rivers and provinces; but if we were
to settle the position of the primitive rivers or countries by a
reference to these new names, we can as well locate the Airyana
Vaêjo between the Himâlay and the Vindhya mountains in
India, for in later Sanskrit literature the land lying between these
two mountains is called the Âryâvarta or the abode of the Aryans.
The mistake committed by Darmesteter and Spiegel is of the
same kind. Instead of determining the position of the Airyana
Vaêjo from the fact that a winter of ten months is said to have
been introduced therein by Angra Mainyu, and that a year seemed
only as a day to the inhabitants thereof, they have tried to guess
it from the uncertain data furnished by the names of rivers in Iran,
though they were aware of the fact that these names were origi-
nally the names of mythical rivers and were attached to the
real rivers in Iran only in later times, when a branch of the

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 379
Aryan race went over to and settled in that country. Naturally
enough this introduced greater confusion into the account of
the Airyana Vaêjo instead of elucidating it, and scholars tried to
get out of it by supposing that the whole account is either
mythical, or is, at best, a confused reminiscence of the ancient
Iranian home. The recent scientific discoveries have, however,
proved the correctness of the Avestic traditions, and in the
light thrown upon the subject by the new materials there is no
course left but to reject the erroneous speculations of those
Zend scholars that make the Airyana Vaêjo the eastern boundary
of ancient Iran.
But the most important part of the second Fargard is the
warning conveyed by Ahura Mazda to Yima that fatal winters
were going to fall on the land ruled over by the latter, and the
description of glaciation by which the happy land was to be
ruined. The warning is in the form of a prophecy, but any
one who reads the two Fargards carefully can see that the
passage really gives us a description of the Glacial epoch
witnessed by the ancestors of the Iranians. We give below
the translation of the passage both by Darmesteter and
Spiegel.
VENDIDAD, FARGARD II.
Darmesteter. Spiegel.
22. And Ahura Mazda spake 46. Then spake Ahura Mazda
unto Yima saying, “O fair to Yima : “ Yima the fair, the
Yima, son of Vîvanghat! son of Vîvaṅhâo,
Upon the material world the 47. Upon the corporeal world
fatal winters are going to fall, will the evil of winter come :
that shall bring the fierce, foul 48. Wherefore a vehement,
frost ; upon the material world destroying frost will arise.
the fatal winters are going to 49. Upon the corporeal world
fall, that shall make snow- will the evil of winter come :
flakes fall thick, even an 50. Wherefore snow will fall

380 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
Darmesteter. Spiegel.
aredvî deep on the 'high- in great abundance,
est tops of mountains. 51. On the summits of the
mountains, on the breadth of
the heights.
23. And all the three sorts 52. From three (places), O
of beasts shall perish, those Yima, let the cattle depart,
that live in the wilderness, 53. If they are in the most
and those that live on the fearful places,
tops of the mountains, and 54. If they are on the tops of
those that live in the bosom the mountains,
of the dale, under the shelter 55. If they are in the depths
of stables. of the valleys,
56. To secure dwelling places.
24. Before that winter, those 57. Before this winter the
fields would bear plenty of country produced pasture;
grass for cattle: now with 58. Before flow waters, behind
floods that stream, with snows is the melting of the snow.
that melt, it will seem a hap- 59. Clouds, O Yima, will come
py land in the world, the land over the inhabitated regions,
wherein footprints even of 60. Which now behold the
sheep may still be seen. feet of the greater and smaller
cattle:
25. Therefore make thee a 61. Therefore make thou a
Vara, long as a riding-ground, circle of the length of a race-
on every side of the square, ground to all four corners.
and thither bring the seeds 62. Thither bring thou the
of sheep and oxen, of men, seed of the cattle, of the beasts
of dogs, of birds, and of red of burden, and of men, of dogs,
blazing fires. of birds, and of the red burn-
ing fires.
Can anything, we ask, be more clear and distinct than
the above description of the advent of the Glacial epoch in the
happy land over which Yima ruled, and where a year was

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 381
equivalent to a single day ? There is no reference to Angra
Mainyu in this passage which describes in the form of a pro-
phecy the evils of glaciation, much in the same manner as a
modern geologist would describe the progress of the ice-cap
during the Glacial period. Ahura Mazda tells Yima that fierce
and foul frost will fall on the material world, and even the tops
of the highest mountains will be covered with or rather buried
in snow which will destroy all living beings whether on the tops
of the mountains or in the valleys below. The snow, it is said,
would fall aredvi deep, which Spiegel translates by the phrase
'in great abundance,' while Darmesteter, quoting from the com-
mentary, explains in a footnote that "even where it (the snow)
is least, it will be one Vitasti two fingers, that is, fourteen fingers
deep." A cubit of snow, at the lowest, covering the highest
tops of the mountains and the lowest depths of the valleys alike .
cannot but destroy all animal life ; and I do not think that the
beginning of the Ice-age can be more vividly described. With
this express passage before us ascribing the ruin of the happy land
to the invasion of ice and winter, we should have no difficulty
whatsoever in rightly interpreting the meaning of the invasion
of Angra Mainyu described in the beginning of the first Fargard.
It is no longer a matter of inference that the original genial
climate of the Airyana Vaêjo was rendered inclement by the
invasion of winter and snow, afterwards introduced into the land.
The above passage says so in distinct terms, and the description
is so graphic that we cannot regard it as mythical or imaginary.
Add to it the fact that the recent geological discoveries have
established the existence of at least two Glacial periods, the last
of which closed and the post-Glacial period commenced, accord-
ing to American geologists, not later than about 8000 B. C.
When the Avestic traditions regarding the destruction of the
primeval Arctic home by glaciation is thus found to be in com-
plete harmony with the latest geological researches, there is no

382 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
reason, except prejudice, why we should not regard the Avestic
account as a correct reminiscence of an old real historical fact.
The author of the Fargards in question cannot be supposed to
have given us by imagination such a graphic account of a
phenomenon, which is brought to light or discovered by the
scientists only during the last forty or fifty years. Dar-
mesteter in his translation of the Fargards observes in a foot-
note that the account of glaciation is the result of a mythical
misunderstanding by which winter was thought to be the
counter-creation of Irân Vêj. This passed off very well twenty
years ago; but the phenomenon of glaciation in the Ice-age
is now better understood, and we cannot accept guesses and
conjectures of scholars regarding the meaning of a passage
in the Avesta which describes the glaciation of the Iranian
paradise. It only proves how the ancient records, howsoever
express and distinct they may be, are apt to be misunderstood
and misinterpreted owing to our imperfect knowledge of the
climatic or other conditions or surroundings amongst which
the ancestors of our race lived in remote ages. But for such a
misunderstanding, it was not difficult to perceive that the
Airyana Vaêjo, or the original home of the Aryan race, was
situated near the North Pole, and that the ancestors of our
race abandoned it not out of "irresistible impulse," or "over-
crowding," but simply because it was ruined by the invasion
of snow and ice brought on by the Glacial epoch. In short,
the Avestic tradition, as recorded in this Fargard, is the oldest
documentary evidence of the great climatic convulsion, which
took place several hundreds of years ago, and the scientific
evidence of which was discovered only during the last forty
or fifty years. It is, therefore, a matter of regret that the im-
portance of this tradition should have been so long misunder-
stood or overlooked.
It will be seen from the foregoing discussion that the tra-
ditional evidence preserved in the first two Fargards of the

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 383
Vendidad is especially important for our purpose. The Dawn-
hymns in the Ṛig-Veda supply us with the evidence of a long
continuous dawn of thirty days in the ancient home, and there
are passages in the Vedas which speak of a long continuous
night of six months or of shorter duration, and a year of seven
or ten months. It can also be shown that several Vedic myths
and deities bear an unmistakable stamp of their Arctic origin.
But, as stated before, in the whole Vedic literature there is
no passage which will enable us to determine the time when
the Polar regions were inhabited, or to ascertain the reason
why they were abandoned. For that purpose we drew upon
geology which has recently established the fact that the cli-
mate of the circumpolar regions, which is now so cold as to
render the land unsuited for human habitation, was mild and
genial before the last Glacial period. It followed, therefore,
that if the Vedic evidence pointed to an Arctic home, the fore-
fathers of the Aryan race must have lived therein not after
but before the last Glacial epoch. But the traditions preserved
in the Avesta dispense with the necessity of relying on geology
for this purpose. We have now direct traditional evidence
to shew (1) that the Airyana Vaêjo had originally a good cli-
mate, but Angra Mainyu converted it into a winter of ten and
a summer of two months. (2) that the Airyana Vaêjo was so
situated that the inhabitants of Yima's Vara therein regarded
the year only as a day, and saw the sun rise only once a
year, and (3) that the happy land was rendered uninhabitable
by the advent of a Glacial epoch which destroyed all life there-
in. It is true, that but for recent geological discoveries these
statements, howsoever plain and distinct, would have remained
unintelligible, or regarded as improbable by scholars, who
would have always tried, as Darmesteter has already done, to
put some artificial or unnatural construction upon these pas-
sages to render the same comprehensible to them. We cannot,
therefore, deny that we are indebted to these scientific

384 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
discoveries for enabling us to determine the true meaning of the
Avestic traditions, and to clear the mist of misinterpretation
that has gathered round them. But nevertheless, the value of
this traditional testimony is not thereby impaired in any way.
It is the oldest traditional record, preserved by human memory,
of the great catastrophe which overtook the northern portion
of Europe and Asia in ancient times, and obliged the Aryan
inhabitants of the Arctic regions to migrate southwards. It
has been preserved during thousands of years simply as an
ancient record or tradition, though its meaning was not intel-
ligible, until at last we now see that the accuracy of the account
is fully and unexpectedly borne out by the latest scientific
researches. There are very few instances where science has
proved the accuracy of the ancient semi-religious records in
this way. When the position of the Airyana Vaêjo and the
cause of its ruin are thus definitely settled both by traditional
and scientific evidence, it naturally follows that the sixteen
lands mentioned in the first Fargard of the Vendidad must be
taken to mark the gradual diffusion of the Iranians from their
ancient home to the country of the Rasâ and the seven rivers;
or, in other words, the Fargard must be regarded as historical
and not geographical as maintained by Spiegel and Darme-
steter. It is true that the first Fargard does not say anything
about migration. But when the site of the Airyana Vaêjo is
placed in the extreme north, and when we are told in the
second Fargard that the land was ruined by ice, no specific
mention of migration is needed, and the fact that the sixteen
lands are mentioned in a certain specific order is naturally
understood, in that case, to mark the successive stages of
migration of the Indo-Iranian people. It is not contended
that every word in these two Fargards may be historically
correct. No one would expect such a rigid accuracy in the
reminiscences of old times traditionally preserved. It is
also true that the Airyana Vaêjo has grown into a sort of

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 385
mythical land in the later Pârsî literature, somewhat like Mount
Meru, the seat of Hindu gods, in the Purâṇas. But for all that
we cannot deny that in the account of the Airyana Vaêjo in
the first two Fargards of the Vendidad we have a real historical
reminiscence of the Arctic cradle of the Iranian or the Aryan
races, and that the Fargard gives us a description of the countries
through which the Indo-Iranians had to pass before they settled
in the Hapta Heṇdu or on the floods of Rangha, at the
beginning of the post-Glacial period.
This story of the destruction of the original home by ice
may well be compared with the story of deluge found in the
Indian literature. The oldest of these accounts is contained
in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa (I, 8, 1, 1-10), and the same story is
found, with modifications and additions, in the Mahâbhârata
(Vana-Parvan, Ch. 187), and in the Mâtsya, the Bhâgavata and
other Purâṇas. All these passages are collected and discussed
by Muir in the first Volume of his Original Sanskrit Texts (3rd
Ed. pp. 181-220); and it is unnecessary to examine them at any
length in this place. We are concerned only with the Vedic
version of the story and this appears in the above mentioned
passage in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa. A fish is there represented
as having fallen into the hands of Manu along with water brought
for washing in the morning. The fish asked Manu to save him,
and in return promised to rescue Manu from a flood (aughaḥ)
that would sweep away (nirvodhâ) all creatures. The Brâhmaṇa
does not say when and where this conversation took place, nor
describes the nature of the calamity more fully than that it
was a flood. Manu preserved the fish first in a jar, then in a
trench, and lastly, by carrying him to the ocean. The fish
then warns Manu that in such and such a year (not definitely
specified) the destructive flood will come, and advises him to
construct a ship (nâvam) and embark in it when the flood
would arise. Manu constructs the ship accordingly, and when
25

386 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
the flood rises, embarks in it, fastens its cable (pásham) to the
fish's horn and passes over (ati-dudrâva) to "this northern
mountain" (etam uttaram girim) by which phrase the com-
mentator understands the Himavat or the Himâlaya mountain
to the north of India. The fish then asks Manu to fasten
the ship to a tree, so that it may gradually descend, without
going astray, along with the subsiding water; and Manu acts
accordingly. We are told that it is on this account that the
northern mountain has received the appellation of Manor-ava-
sarpaṇam or 'Manu's descent.' Manu was the only person
thus saved from the deluge; and desirous of offspring he
sacrificed with the Pâka-yajña, and threw butter, milk, and
curds as oblations into the waters. Thence in a year rose a
woman named Iḍâ, and Manu living with her begot the off-
spring, which is called Manu's off-spring (prajâtiḥ). This is
the substance of the story as found in the Shatapatha Brâh-
maṇa, and the same incident is apparently referred to in the
Atharva Veda Saṁhitâ (XIX, 39, 7-8), which says that the
kushṭha plant was born on the very spot on the summit
of the Himavat, the seat of the 'Gliding down of the ship'
(nâva-prabhraṁshanam), the golden ship with golden tackle
that moved through the heaven. In the Mahâbhârata ver-
sion of the legend this peak of the Himâlaya is said to be
known as Nau-bandhanam, but no further details regarding the
place or time are given. The Mâtsya Purâṇa, however, men-
tions Malaya, or the Malabar, as the scene of Manu's austerity,
and in the Bhâgavata, Satyavrata, king of Draviḍa, is said
to be the hero of the story. Muir has compared these accounts,
and pointed out the differences between the oldest and the
later versions of the story, showing how it was amplified or
enlarged in later times. We are, however, concerned with the
oldest account; and so far as it goes, it gives us no clue for
determining the place whence Manu embarked in the ship.
The deluge again appears to be one of water; and not of ice

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

388 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
constructed the Vara in the Avesta, is there described as the
son of Vîvanghat ; and Manu, the hero in the Indian story,
though he receives no epithet in the account of the deluge in
the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa, is very often described in the
Vedic literature as the son of Vivasvat (Vaivasvata), the
Iranian Vîvanghat, (Shat. Brâh. XIII, 4, 3, 3; Ṛig. VIII, 52,
1). Yama is also expressly called Vaivasvata in the Ṛig-
Veda (X, 14, 1). This shows that in spite of the fact that
Yima is the hero in one account and Manu in the other, and
that one is said to be the deluge of ice and the other of water,
we may regard the two accounts as referring to the same
geological phenomenon.* The Avestic account is, however, more
specific than that in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa, and as it is

• The story of the deluge is found also in other Aryan mythologies.
  The following extract from Grote's History of Greece (Vol. I, Chap. 5)
  gives the Greek version of the story and some of the incidents therein
  bear striking resemblance to the incidents in the story of Manu :—
  “ The enormous iniquity with which earth was contaminated—as
  Apollodôrus says, by the then existing brazen race, or as others say, by the
  fifty monstrous sons of Lykaôn--provoked Zeus to send a general deluge.
  An unremitting and terrible rain laid the whole of Greece under water,
  except the highest mountain-tops, whereon a few stragglers found refuge.
  Deukaliôn was saved in a chest or ark, which he had been forewarned by
  his father Promêtheus to construct. After floating for nine days on the
  water, he at length landed on the summit of Mount Parnasses. Zeus hav-
  ing sent Hermês to him, promising to grant whatever he asked, he prayed
  that men and companions might be sent to him in his solitude; accordingly
  Zeus directed both him and Pyrrha (his wife) to cast stones over their
  heads : those cast by Pyrrha became women, those by Deukaliôn men.
  And thus the “stony race of men” (if we may be allowed to translate an
  etymology which the Greek language presents exactly, and which has not
  been disdained by Hesiod, by Pindar, by Epicharmas, and by Virgil)
  came to tenant the soil of Greece. Deukaliôn on landing from the ark sa-
  crificed a grateful offering to Zeus Phyxios, or the God of escape; he also
  erected altars in Thessaly to the twelve great gods of Olympus.”
  · In commenting upon the above story Grote remarks that the reality
  of this deluge was firmly believed throughout the historical ages of
  Greece, and even Aristotle, in his meteorological work, admits and
  reasons upon it as an unquestionable fact.