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

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 403
Vipra being changed into Avestic Vîfra and Navagva into
Navâza.
The above legends from the Greek, Celtic and Norse
literatures show that a long winter-darkness was not un-
known to the ancestors of the Aryan races in Europe, who
have preserved distinct reminiscences of a year of ten or six
months' sun-shine, and that the Navagvas and the Dasha-
gvas of the Ṛig-Veda have again their parallels in the mytho-
logy of other Aryan races, though the resemblance may not
be as obvious in the one as in the other case. A year
of six months' or ten months' sunshine necessarily implies
a long continuous day and a long continuous night, and
distinct references to these Arctic characteristics of day
and night are found in Norse and Slavonic legends. Thus
the Norse Sun-god Balder is said to have dwelt in a place
in heaven called Breidablik or Broadgleam, the most bless-
ed of all lands, where nought unclean or accursed could
abide. Upon this Prof. Rhys observes, "It is remarkable
that Balder had a dwelling place in the heavens, and this
seems to refer to the Arctic summer when the sun pro-
longs his stay above the horizon. The pendant to the
picture would naturally be his staying as long in the nether
world."* This corresponds exactly with the Vedic description
of the sun's unyoking his carriage and making a halt in the
mid of the heaven, discussed in the sixth chapter. The story
of three brothers in the Slavonic literature also points out to
the same conclusion. We are told that "Once there was
an old couple who had three sons. Two of them had their wits
about them, but the third, Ivan, was a simpleton. Now in
the land in which Ivan lived, there was never any day but
always night. This was a snake's doing. Well, Ivan under-
took to kill that snake. Then came a third snake with
twelve heads, Ivan killed it and destroyed the heads and

• Rhys' Hibbert Lectures, p. 536.

404 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
immediately there was light throughout the whole land."* This
reminds one of the story of Trita in the Ṛig-Veda previously
described. Trita's abode is said to be in the distant region,
and we have interpreted it to mean the nether world of dark
ness, an interpretation which amongst others is fully borne
out by the story of Ivan and his two brothers. But the dark
power takes a distinctive Russian appearance in the awful
figure of Koshchei, the deathless,—a fleshless skeleton who
squeezes heroes to death in his bony arms. He carries off a
princess; after seven years the hero reaches his under-ground
palace and is hidden; but is discovered by Koshchei who typi-
fies winter in this case. All these legends clearly indicate a
dark winter of some months' duration, or the long winter-
night of the Arctic regions. There are other stories in which
the Sun-hero is said to have been detained in a place of
darkness; but it is not necessary to refer to them in this place.
For comparison I shall only refer briefly to a legend in the
Finnish mythology, which, though not Aryan in origin, may
yet serve to throw some light on the subject under considera-
tion. In the mythology of the Finns, the Dawn is called
Koi and "Koi, the Dawn (masc.), and Ammarik, the Gloam-
ing (fem.), are said to have been entrusted by Vanna-issa, the
Old Father, with lighting and extinguishing every morning
and evening the torch of the day. As a reward for their
faithful services Vanna-issa would allow them to get married.
But they preferred to remain bride and bridegroom, and
Vanna-issa had nothing more to say. He allowed them,
however, to meet at midnight during four weeks in summer.
At that time. Ammarik hands the dying torch to Koi, who
revives it with his breath."‡ If this legend has any meaning it
signifies the cessation of extinguishing the torch of the day
during four weeks in summer. Koi and Ammarik both leave

• Poor's Comparative Mythology, p. 390. ‡ Max Muller's Con-
  tributions to the Science of Mythology, pp. 267-8.

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 405
their places and arrange to meet at midnight but without ex-
tinguishing the torch. This means a long day of four weeks,
and as it must have a long night of four weeks to match it
the story points out to a period of eleven months' sun-shine,
and an Arctic night of four weeks.
From the legends mentioned, or referred to, or described
above, it may be easily seen that many traces of the Arctic
calendar are still discernible in the mythology of the west-
ern Aryan races like Celts, Teutons, Lets, Slavs, Greeks and
Romans. Long dawns or a number of dawns, long days, long
nights, dark winters, are all alluded to more or less explicitly in
these myths, though none of these legends refers directly to the
position of the primeval home and the cause of its destruction.
But this omission or defect is removed by the evidence contained
in the Veda and the Avesta ; and when the European legends are
viewed in the light of the Indo-Iranian traditions they clearly
point to the existence of a primeval home near the North Pole.
There are a number of other legends in the Celtic and Teutonic
literatures which describe the victory of sun-hero over the
demons of darkness every year, similar in character to the victory
of Indra over Vṛitra, or to the achievements of the Ashvins, the
physicians of the gods. Thus in the Norse mythology, Hodur,
the blind god of winter, is represented as killing Balder or Baldur,
or the god of summer, and Vali the son of Odin and Rind is said
to have avenged his brother's death afterwards. The encounters
of Ċuchulainn, the Celtic Sun-god, with his enemies, the Fomori
or the Fir Bolg, the Irish representatives of the powers of dark-
ness, are of the same character. It may also be remarked that
according to Prof. Rhys the world of waters and the world of
darkness and the dead are identical in Celtic myths, in the same
way as the world of water, the abode of Vṛitra and the
world of darkness are shown to be in the Vedic mythology.
The strange custom of couvade, by which the whole population

406 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
of Ireland is described as being laid up in confinement or in-
disposed so as to be unable to defend their country against the
invasion of Ailill and ‘Medle with their Fir Bolg, excepting
Cuchulainn and his father, again indicates, according to Prof.
Rhys, a sort of decline in the power of gods like that witnessed
in the case of the winter-sun ; in other words, it was an indisposi-
tion or inactivity of the same sort which amounts in the Norse
Edda to nothing less than actual death of the Anses at the hands
of the powers of evil. This temporary affliction or the indisposi-
tion of the gods forms the subject of many other legends. But
we have no space to narrate all of them, and shall, therefore,
only quote here the conclusion, which Prof. Rhys has been forced
to adopt, regarding the meaning of these myths after a critical
examination of the different Celtic and Teutonic legends.
Speaking of Gods, Demons and Heroes, in the last lecture of his
learned work, he thus sums up his views regarding the myths
describing the encounters between Gods or Sun-heroes and the
powers of darkness :---
“ All that we have thus far found with regard to the con-
test of the gods and their allies against the powers of evil and
theirs, would seem to indicate that they were originally regard-
ed as yearly struggles. This appears to be the meaning of the
fore-knowledge as to the final battle of Moytura, and as to the
exact date of the engagement on the Plain of Fidga in which
Cuchulainn assists Labraid of the Swift Hand on the sword, a
kind of Celtic Zeus, or Mars-Jupiter, as the ruler of an Ely-
sium in the other world. It was for a similar reason that the
northern Sibyl could predict that, after the Anses had been
slain by Swart, aided by the evil brood, Balder would come to
reign, when all would be healed, and the Anses would meet
again in the Field of Ith. Nor can the case have been materi-
ally different with the Greek gods, as proved by the allusion
to the prophecy about the issue of the war with the giants.

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 407
And this was not all ; for we are told that the Cretans repre-
sented Zeus as born and bred and also buried in their island, a
view sometimes formally regarded as confirming the character
ascribed to them for lying ; but that deserves no serious consi-
deration, and the Cretans in their mysteries are supposed to
have represented the god going through the stages of his history
every year. A little beyond the limits of the Greek world a simi-
lar idea assumed a still more remarkable form, namely, among
the Phrygians, who are said by Plutarch to have believed their
god (like the Purâṇic Vishṇu) to sleep during the winter and
resume his activity during summer. The same author also states
that the Paphlagonians were of opinion that the gods were shut
up in a prison during winter and let loose in summer. Of these
peoples, the Phrygians at least appear to have been Aryan, and
related by no means distantly to the Greeks ; but nothing could
resemble the Irish couvade of the Ultonion heroes more closely
than the notion of the Phrygian god hibernating. This, in its
turn, is not to be severed from the drastic account of the Zeus of
the Greek Olympus reduced by Typho to a sinewless mass and
thrown for a time into a cave in a state of utter helplessness.
Thus we seem to be directed to the north as the orginal home of
the Aryan nations ; and there are other indications to the same
effect, such as Woden's gold ring Draupnir, which I have taken
to be symbolic of the ancient eight-day week : he places it on
Balder's pile, and with him it disappears for a while into the
nether world, which would seem to mean the cessation for a
time of the vicissitude of day and night, as happens in midwinter
within the Arctic Circle. This might be claimed as exclusively
Icelandic, but not if one can show traces, as I have attempted,
of the same myth in Ireland. Further, a sort of complement
to it is supplied by the fact that Cuchulainn, the Sun-hero, is
made to fight several days and nights without having any
sleep, which though fixed at the wrong season of the year in

408 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
the epic tale in its present form, may probably be regarded as
originally referring to the sun remaining above the horizon
continuously for several days in summer. Traces of the same
idea betray themselves in Balder's son Forseti or the Judge, who,
according to a passage in old Norse literature, sits long hours at
his court settling all causes in his palace of Glitnir in the skies.
These points are mentioned as part of a hypothesis I have been
forced to form for the interpretation of certain features of Aryan
mythology; and that hypothesis, to say the least of it, will not
now be considered so wild as it would have been a few years
ago; for the recent researches of the students of language and
ethnology have profoundly modified their views, and a few words
must, at this point, be devoted to the change that has come over
the scene."*
Prof. Rhys then goes on to briefly describe how the views
of mythologists and philologists regarding the primeval home of
the Aryan race have been modified by the recent discoveries in
Geology, Archælogy and Craniology, and how the site of that
home has been shifted from the plains of Central Asia to the
northern parts of Germany or even to Scandinavia not only on
ethnological but also on philological grounds. As we have
discussed the subject previously, we omit this portion of Prof.
Rhys' remarks and quote the concluding paragraph which runs
as follows:—
" Thus the voice of recent research is raised very decidedly
in favour of Europe, though there is no complete unanimity
as to the exact portion of Europe, to regard as the early home
of the Aryans; but the competition tends to lie between North
Germany and Scandinavia, especially the south of Sweden.
This last would probably do well enough as the country in
which the Aryans may have consolidated and organized them-
selves before beginning to send forth their excess of popula-
tion to conquer the other lands now possessed by nations

• Rhys' Hibbert Lectures, pp. 631-3.

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

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.

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 411
in his discussion of the achievements of the Ashvins, has
failed to grasp the real meaning of the 'Ashvins' legends by
disregarding the statements which distinctly speak of the prote-
ges of the Ashvins as dwelling or labouring in darkness. Prof.
Rhys is more cautious in this respect, and is anxious to account
for all the incidents in the legends if they could possibly be
accounted for on any theory. The result is that he has been
gradually led, or we might even say forced, to adopt the theory
of the ancient Arctic home of the Aryan people inasmuch as all
the different incidents in the legends under consideration can be
accounted for only by this theory. In short, Prof. Rhys has
done for the Celtic and Teutonic myths what we have endea-
voured to do in this book in regard to the Vedic and Avestic tra-
ditions. This has considerably lightened our labour in regard to
the examination of Celtic and Teutonic myths from our point of
view, and our thanks are due to Prof. Rhys for the same. But
we feel sure that if the Vedic evidence and facts stated and
discussed in the fore-going chapters had been known to the
learned Professor before he wrote his work, he would have ex-
pressed himself still more confidently regarding the inference
to be drawn from the traces of Arctic origin discernible in Teu-
tonic myths ; but even as it is, the value of his testimony stands
very high in the decision of the question before us. It is the
testimony of an expert given after a critical and careful examina-
tion of all Celtic and Teutonic Myths, and after comparing them
with similar Greek traditions; and when this testimony falls in
so completely with the conclusions we have drawn from an
independent consideration of the Vedic and Avestic myths, our
results may, so to say, be regarded as doubly proved. It has
already been shown that the results of comparative philology
also support, or, at any rate, are not inconsistent with our
conclusions. The theory of the Asiatic home may be said to
have been now abandoned on linguistic or etymological grounds,

412 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
but it has not yet been proved that the neolithic Aryan races
of Europe were autochthonus in the countries where their
remains are now found. Therefore the question of the original
home of the Aryan people is still an open question, and
we are free to draw any conclusion regarding the ancient
home from a legitimate consideration of the traditional evi-
dence before us. Prof. Rhys has well described the situation by
observing that the teachings of evolution may force us to
look for the original home still farther north in the Arctic
regions. In fact we have to go to a latitude which will give
us seven months' sunshine, or a hundred nights' continuous
darkness, or thirty days' continuous dawn. The question whe-
ther the home of other nations, beside the Aryan, can be traced
to the North Pole, has been ably discussed by Dr. Warren in
his Paradise Found, or the Cradle of the Human Race at the
North Pole. It is an important question from an anthropolo-
gical point of view; but its very comprehensiveness precludes
us from collecting evidence from the traditional literatures of
the different human races living on the surface of this earth.
It is true that we sometimes derive help from the discussion of
the broader questions at first ; but for all practical purposes it
is always desirable to split up the inquiry into different sec-
tions, and when each section has been thoroughly investigated
to combine the results of the different investigators and see
what conclusions are common to all. Our inquiry of the ori-
ginal Aryan home is, therefore, not only not inconsistent with
the general theory about the cradle of the human race at the
North Pole, but a necessary complement to it; and it matters
little whether it is undertaken as an independent inquiry as
we have done, or as a part of the general investigation. Any
how ours is a limited task, namely, to prove that the original
home of the Aryan people was situated in the Arctic regions
before the last Glacial epoch and that the oldest ancestors of
the Aryan race had to abandon it owing to its destruction by

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 413
ice and snow of the Glacial period. The Vedic and the Ave-
stic passages, quoted in the previous chapters, directly point to
such a home in primeval times, and we now see that the testi-
mony of scholars, like Prof. Rhys, who have independently
examined the Celtic, Teutonic and other mythologies of the.
European branches of the Aryan race, fully bears out the con-
clusion we have deduced from the Indo-Iranian traditions.
We have also seen that our view is supported by the latest
scientific researches, and is not inconsistent with the results
of comparative philology. We may, therefore, take it as
established that the original home of the Aryan people
was in the far north, in regions round about the North Pole,
and that we have correctly interpreted the Vedic and the
Avestic traditions which had long remained mis-interpreted
or mis-understood.

CHAPTER XIII.
THE BEARING OF OUR RESULTS ON THE HISTORY OF
PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION.
Proofs of the theory of the Arctic home summed up—They clear-
ly indicate a Polar home,but the exact spot in the Arctic regions,
that is, north of Europe or Asia, still undeterminable—An Arctic
home possible only in inter-Glacial times according to geology
—Ancient Vedic chronology and calendar examined—The in-
terval between the commencement of the Post-Glacial era and
the Orion period cannot, according to it, be so great as 80,000
years—Supported by the moderate estimate of the American
geologists-Purânic chronology of yugas, manvantaras and kalpas
—Rangâchârya's and Aiyer's views thereon—Later Purânic
system evolved out of an original cycle of four yugas of
10,000 years, since the last deluge—The theory of ‘divine
years’ unknown to Manu and Vyâsa—Adopted by later writers
who could not believe that they lived in the Krita age
—The original tradition of 10,000 years since the last deluge
fully in accord with Vedic chronology—And also with the
American estimate of 8,000 B. C. for the beginning of the
Post-Glacial period—All prove the existence of a Polar Aryan
home before 8,000 B. C.—Trustworthiness of the ancient tra-
ditions and the method of preserving them—The theory of the
Polar origin of the whole human race not inconsistent with the
theory of the Arctic Aryan home—Current views regarding pri-
mitive Aryan culture and religion examined—Primitive Aryan
man and his civilisation cannot now be treated as Post-Gla-
cial—Certain destruction of the primeval civilization and cul-
ture by the Ice Age—Short-comings or defects in the civilisa-
tion of the Neolithic Aryan races in Europe must, therefore, be
ascribed to a post-diluvian relapse into barbarism—Life and
calendar in the inter-Glacial Arctic home—Devayâna and Pitri-
yâna and the deities worshipped during the period—The ancient
sacrifices of the Aryan race—The degree of civilisation reached
by the undivided Aryans in their Arctic home—The results of
Comparative Philology stated—The civilisation disclosed by them

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 415
must be taken to be the minimum or the lowest, that can be pre-
dicated of the undivided Aryans—The culture of the undivided
Aryans higher than the culture of the Stone or the Metal age-
—Use of metal coins among them highly probable—Beginnings
of the Aryan language, or the differentiation of human races ac-
cording to colour or language still untraceable—The origin of
Aryan man and religion lost in geological antiquity—Theologi-
cal views regarding the origin and character of the Vedas sum-
marised—Differently supported by writers on the different
schools of philosophy—Patanjali’s and Vyâsa's view that the
Vedas were lost in the last deluge and repromulgated in sub-
stance, if not in form, at the beginning of the new age—The
four periods into which the Post-Glacial era may be divided on
astronomical grounds—Compared with the characteristics of the
four yugas given in the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa—Theological and
historical views regarding the origin &c. of the Vedas stated in
parallel columns and compared —Vedic texts, showing that the
subject matter of the hymns is ancient though the language may
be new, cited—Vedic deities and their exploits all said to be
ancient—Improbability of Dr. Muir’s suggested reconciliation
—Vedas, or rather Vedic religion, shown to be inter-Glacial in
substance though post-Glacial in form—Concluding remarks.
WE have now completed our investigation of the question
of the original home of the ancestors of the Vedic Aryans
from different stand-points of view. Our arguments, it will be
seen, are not based on the history of culture, or on facts dis-
closed by linguistic palæontology. The evidence, cited in the
foregoing chapters, mainly consists of direct passages from
the Vedas and the Avesta, proving unmistakably that the poets
of the Ṛig-Veda were acquainted with the climatic conditions
witnessible only in the Arctic regions, and that the principal
Vedic deities, such as the revolving Dawn, the Waters capti-
vated by Vṛitra, the Ashvins the rescuers of the afflicted gods
and Sûrya, Indra the deity of a hundred sacrifices, Vishṇu the
vast-strider, Varuṇa the lord of night and the ocean, the Âditya
brothers or the seven monthly sun-gods, Trita or the Third,
and others, are clothed with attributes which clearly betray their

416 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
Arctic origin. In other words, all the differentiæ, mentioned
in the third chapter as characteristic of the Polar and Circum-
Polar regions, are met with in the Ṛig-Veda in such a way as
to leave no doubt regarding the conclusion to be drawn from
them. A day or a night of six months, and a long continuous
dawn of several days' duration with its revolving splendours,
not to mention the unusually long Arctic day and night or a
year of less than twelve months' sunshine, were all known to
the Vedic bards, and have been described by them not mytho-
logically or metaphorically but directly in plain and simple
words, which, though misinterpreted so long, can, in the light
thrown upon the question by recent scientific researches, be
now rightly read and understood. In fact the task, which I set
to myself, was to find out such passages, and show how in the
absence of the true key to their meaning, they have been sub-
jected to forced construction, or ignored and neglected, by
Vedic scholars both Indian and foreign, ancient and modern.
I do not mean, however, to underrate, on that account, the
value or the importance of the labours of Indian Nairuktas
like Yâska, or commentators like Sâyaṇa. Without their aid
we should have, it is readily admitted, been able to do little
in the field of the Vedic interpretation; and I am fully aware
of the service they have rendered to this cause. There is no
question that they have done their best in elucidating the
meaning of our sacred books; and their claims on the grateful
remembrance of their services by future generations of
scholars will ever remain unchallenged. But if the Vedas
are really the oldest records of our race, who can deny that in
the light of the advancing knowledge regarding primitive
humanity, we may still discover in these ancient records
facts and statements which may have escaped the attention
of older scholars owing to the imperfect nature, in their days,
of those sciences which are calculated to throw further light on
the habits and environments of the oldest ancestors of our

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 417
race? There is, therefore, nothing strange if some of the pass-
ages in the Ṛig-Veda and the Avesta disclose to us ideas which
the ancient commentators could not and did not perceive in
them; and I would request the reader to bear this in mind in
comparing the interpretations and explanations proposed by me
in the foregoing chapters with the current interpretations of
these passages by eastern or western Vedic scholars.
But our conclusions do not rest merely on the interpretation
of passages which, if rightly construed, disclose climatic charac-
teristics peculiar to the Arctic regions; though this evidence is,
by itself, sufficient to prove our hypothesis. We have seen that
in the sacrificial literature of the Vedic people as well as in their
mythology there are many indications which point to the same
conclusion; and these are fully corroborated by the ancient
traditions and legends in the Avesta and also by the mythologies
of the European branches of the Aryan race. A sacrificial session
of ten months held by the Dashagvas, or an annual sattra of
the same duration, compared with the oldest Roman year ending
in December or the tenth month, are the principal instances on
the point; and they have been fully discussed in the foregoing
chapters. I have also shown that the knowledge of the half-year-
long day or night is not confined to the traditions of the eastern
Aryas, but is common also to the European branches of the
Aryan race. The tradition preserved in the Vendidad about the
ancient Iranian Paradise in the far north, so that a year was
equal to a day to the inhabitants thereof, and its destruction by
snow and ice burying the land under a thick ice-cap, again affords
the most striking and cogent proof of the theory we have
endeavoured to prove in these pages. Thus if the traditions of
the western Aryas point out, according to Prof. Rhys, to Finland
or the White Sea as the original home of the Aryan people,
the Vedic and the Avestic traditions carry us still farther to
the north; for a continuous dawn of thirty days is possible only
27

418 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
within a few degrees of the North Pole. But though the latitude
of the original home can be thus ascertained more or less defini-
tely, yet there is unfortunately nothing in these traditions which
will enable us to determine the longitude of the place, or, in
other words, whether the original home of the Aryan race was to
the north of Europe or Asia. But considering the fact that the
traditions of the original Polar home are better preserved in the
sacred books of the Brahmins and the Parsis, it is not unlikely
that the primeval home was located to the north of Siberia
rather than to the north of Russia or Scandinavia. It is, how-
ever, useless to speculate on the point without further proof.
The Vedic and the Avestic evidence clearly establish the exist-
ence of a primeval Polar home, the climate of which was mild
and temperate in ancient times, before it was invaded by the
Glacial epoch ; and with this result we must rest content, until
we get sufficient new materials to ascertain the exact position of
the Aryan home within the Arctic regions.
We commenced the book with a summary of the results of
the latest geological and archæological researches regarding the
history of primitive humanity and the invasion of northern
Europe and Asia by a series of glacial epochs in the Quarternary
era. This discussion was prefixed to the book with the object of
clearing up certain misapprehensions regarding the early history
of our planet based on knowledge derived from older geological
works, when man was believed to be post-glacial; and it will now
be seen that our theory of the primeval Arctic home of the Aryan
races is in perfect accord with the latest and most approved
geological facts and opinions. A primeval Arctic home would have
been regarded an impossibility, had not science cleared the ground
by establishing that the antiquity of man goes back to the Terti-
ary era, that the climate of the Polar regions was mild and
temperate in inter-glacial times, and that it was rendered cold

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 419
and inclement by the advent of the Glacial epoch. We can
now also understand why attempts to prove the existence of an
Arctic home by discovering references to severe winter and
cold in the Vedas did not succeed in the past. The winter in
the primeval home was originally, that is, in inter-glacial
times, neither severe nor inclement, and if such expressions as
"a hundred winters" (shatam himâḥ) are found in the Vedic
literature, they cannot be taken for reminiscences of severe
cold winters in the original home; for the expression came
into use probably because the year in the original home
closed with a winter characterised by the long Arctic night.
It was the advent of the Ice Age that destroyed the mild
climate of the original home and converted it into an ice-
bound land unfit for the habitation of man. This is well ex-
pressed in the Avesta which describes the Airyana Vaêjo as
a happy land subsequently converted by the invasion of Angra
Mainyu into a land of severe winter and snow. This corres-
pondence between the Avestic description of the original
home and the result of the latest geological researches, at
once enables us to fix the age of the Arctic home, for it is
now a well-settled scientific fact that a mild climate in
the Polar regions was possible only in the inter-glacial and
not in the post-glacial times.
But according to some geologists 20,000 or even 80,000
years have passed since the close of the last Glacial epoch;
and as the oldest date assigned to the Vedic hymns does not
go beyond 4500 B. C., it may be contended that the traditions
of the Ice Age, or of the inter-glacial home, cannot be sup-
posed to have been accurately preserved by oral transmis-
sion for thousands of years that elapsed between the com-
mencement of the post-Glacial era and the oldest date of
the Vedic hymns. It is, therefore, necessary to examine the
point a little more closely in this place. In my Orion or
Researches into the antiquity of the Vedas, I have shown

420 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
that while the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ and the Brâhmaṇas begin
the Nakṣhatras with the Kṛittikâs or the Pleiades, show-
ing that the vernal equinox then coincided with the aforesaid
asterism (2500 B. C.), the Vedic literature contains traces of
Mṛiga or Orion being once the first of the Nakṣhatras and the
hymns of the Ṛig-Veda, or at least many of them, which are
undoubtedly older than the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, contain refer-
ence to this period, that is, about 4500 B. C. approximately.
It is also pointed out that there are faint traces of the same
equinox being once in the constellation of Punarvasû, presid-
ed over by Aditi, which was possible in about 6,000 B. C. I
have in my later researches tried to push back this limit by
searching for the older zodiacal positions of the vernal equinox
in the Vedic literature, but I have not found any evidence of
the same. My attention was, however, directed more and more
to passages containing traces of an Arctic calendar and an
Arctic home, and I have been gradually led to infer therefrom
that at about 5000 or 6000 B. C., the Vedic Aryas had settled
on the plains of Central Asia, and that at the time the tradi-
tions about the existence of the Arctic home and its destruc-
tion by snow and ice, as well as about the Arctic origin of the
Vedic deities, were definitely known to the bards of these races.
In short, reserches in Vedic chronology and calendar do not
warrant us in placing the advent of the last Glacial epoch,
which destroyed the ancient Aryan home, at a time several
thousands of years previous to the Orion period ; and from
what has been stated in the first two chapters of the book, it
will be seen that this estimate well agrees with the conclusions
of American geologists, who, from an examination of the
erosion of valleys and similar other well-ascertained facts, as-
sign to the close of the last Glacial epoch a date not older than
about 8000 B. C. We might even go further and say that an-
cient Vedic chronology and calendar furnish an independent
corroboration of the moderate view of the American geologists ;

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION, 421
and when two independent lines of research unexpectedly lead
us to the same result, we may very well reject, at least in the
present state of our knowledge, the extravagant speculations
of Croll and his followers, and, for all practical purposes, adopt
the view that the last Glacial epoch closed and the post-Glacial
period commenced at about 8000 B. C. From this to the
Orion period is an interval of about 3000 years, and it is not at
all improbable that the traditions of the ancient home should
have been remembered and incorporated into hymns whose
origin can be clearly traced to that period. In short, the Vedic
traditions, far from being contradictory to the scientific
evidence, only serve to check the extravagant estimates re-
garding the age of the last Glacial epoch; and if the sober
view of American geologists be adopted, both geology and
the traditions recorded in the ancient books of the Aryan race
will be found alike to point out to a period not much older
than 8000 B. C. for the commencement of the post-Glacial
era and the compulsory migration of the Aryan races from
their Arctic home.
And not only Vedic but also Purâṇic chronology, properly
understood, leads us to the same conclusion. According
to the Purâṇas the earth and the whole universe are occa-
sionally subjected to destruction at long intervals of time, the
earth by a small and the universe by a grand deluge. Thus we
are told that when the god Brahmâ is awake during his day
the creation exists; but when at the end of the day he goes to
sleep, the world is destroyed by a deluge, and is re-created
when he awakes from his sleep and resumes his activity the
next morning. Brahmâ's evening and morning are thus syn-
onymous with the destruction and the re-creation of the earth.
A day and a night of Brahmâ are each equal to a period of time
called a Kalpa, and a Kalpa is taken for a unit in measuring
higher periods of time. Two Kalpas constitute a nycthemeron
(day and night) of Brahmâ, and 360×2=720 Kalpas make

422 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
his year, while a hundred such years constitute his life-time, at
the end of which a grand deluge overtakes the whole universe
including Brahmâ. Now according to the Code of Manu and
the Mahâbhârata the four yugas of Kṛita, Tretâ, Dvâpara and
Kali form a yuga of gods, and a thousand such yugas make a
Kalpa or a day of Brahmâ of 12,000,000 years, at the end of
which a deluge destroys the world. The Purâṇas, however,
have adopted a different method of computation. The four
yugas of Kṛita, Tretâ, Dvâpara and Kali are thete said to con-
stitute a Mahâ-yuga ; 71 such Mahâ-yugas constitute a Man-
vantara, and 14 Manvantaras make a Kalpa, which, according
to this method of counting, contains 4,320,000,000 years. The
dieffrence between the durations of a Kalpa according to these
two methods is due to the fact that the years making up the
four yugas of Kṛita, Tretâ, Dvâpara and Kali are considered
to be divine in the latter, while they are obviously human in
Manu and the Mahâbhârata. For further details the reader
is referred to the late Mr. S. B. Dixit's History of Indian
Astronomy in Marâṭhi, Prof. Raṅgâchârya's essay on Yugas,
and Mr. Aiyer's Chronology of Ancient India, a book, in, which
the question of yugas and especially that of the beginning of the
Kali yuga, is subjected to a searching and exhaustive examina-
tion. The Hindu writers on astronomy seem to have adopt-
ed the same system, except Âryabhaṭṭa, who holds that 72,
and not 71, Mahâ-yugas make a Manvantara, and that a Mahâ-
yuga is divided into four equal parts which are termed Kṛitâ,
Tretâ, Dvâpara and Kali. According to this chronological
system, we are, at present, in the 5003rd year (elapsed) of
the Kali yuga of the 28th Mahâ-yuga of the 7th ( Vaivasvata )
Manvantara of the current Kalpa ; or, 1, 972, 949, 003 year s
have, in other words, elapsed since the deluge which occured
at the beginning of the present or the Shvëta-vârıha Kalpa.
This estimate is, as observed by Prof. Raṅgâchârya, quite be-
yond the limit admitted by modern geology ; and it is not