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

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 431
that it is not difficult to ascertain, from traditions contained
therein, the site of the Aryan Paradise, now that we begin to
search for it in the light thrown upon the subject by modern
scientific researches.
But if the fact of an early Aryan home in the far north is once
established by indisputable traditional evidence, it is sure to re-
volutionise the existing views regarding the primitive history or
religion of the Aryan races. Comparative philologists and Sans-
kritists, who looked for the primeval home " somewhere in Cen-
tral Asia," have advanced the theory that the whole progress of
the Aryan race, intellectual, social or moral from primeval sava-
gery to such civilisation as is disclosed by the Vedic hymns, was
effected on the plains of Central Asia. It was on these plains,
we are told, that our oldest ancestors gazed upon the wonders
of dawn or the rising sun with awe and astonishment, or rever-
entially watched the storm-clouds hovering in the sky to be
eventually broken up by the god of rain and thunder, thereby
giving rise to the worship of natural elements and thus laying
down the foundations of later Aryan mythology. It was on these
plains that they learnt the art of weaving, the products of which
superseded the use of hides for clothing, or constructed their
chariots, or trained their horses, or discovered the use of
metals like gold and silver. In short, all the civilisation and cul-
ture which Comparative Philology proves on linguistic grounds
to have been common to the different Aryan races before their
separation is regarded to have first originated or developed on
the plains of Central Asia in post-Glacial times. Dr. Schrader,
in his Pre-historic Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, gives us
an exhaustive summary of facts and arguments regarding
primitive Aryan culture and civilisation which can be deduced
from Linguistic Palæology, or Comparative Philology, and
as a repertory of such facts the book stands unrivalled. But we
must remember that the results of Comparative Philology,

432 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
howsoever interesting and instructive they may be from the lin-
guistic or the historical point of view, are apt to mislead us if we
know not the site of the original home, or the time when it was
inhabited or abandoned by the ancestors of our race. Compa-
rative Philology may teach us that cow was an animal known and
domesticated before the Aryan separation, or that the art of
weaving was known in those old days, because the words 'cow'
and 'weave' can be traced in all the Aryan languages. But it
is now found that equations like these do not help us much in
definitely ascertaining where the united Aryans lived and when
they separated; while recent researches in Archæology and
Anthropology have exhibited the improbability of a Central
Asian home of the Aryan races and successive migrations there-
from to European countries. The hypothesis of a Central Asian
home is, therefore, now almost abandoned; but strange to say,
that those, who maintain that Europe was inhabited at the
beginning of the Neolithic age by the ancestors of the races who
now inhabit the same regions, are prepared to leave undetermined
the question whether these races originated in Europe or went
there from some other land. Thus Canon Taylor, in his Origin
of the Aryans, confidently advises us that we need not concern
ourselves with the arguments of those who assert that Europe
was inhabited by the ancestors of the existing races even in the
Palæolithic period; for, says he, "philologists will probably admit
that within the limits of the Neolithic age, it would be possible
to find sufficient time for the evolution and the differentiation of
the Aryan languages."* In the last chapter of the same book
we are further informed that the mythologies of the different
branches of the Aryan race must have been developed after
their separation, and that resemblances, like Dyaus-pitar and
Jupiter, or Varuṇa and Uranus, must be taken to be merely
verbal and not mythological in their origin. In short, the

• See Taylor's Origin of the Aryans, p. 57.

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 433
advocates of the Central Asian as well as of the northern
European home of the Aryans are both unwilling to carry back
the beginning of the Aryan civilisation beyond post-glacial times,
and we are told that Aryan mythology and religion cannot,
therefore, claim any higher antiquity.
All such guesses and speculations about the origin of the
Aryan race and its civilization will have now to be revised in
the new light thrown upon the subject by the theory of the
Arctic home in pre-Glacial times. We cannot now maintain
that primitive Aryans were a post-Glacial race, or that they
advanced from barbarism to civilisation in the Neolithic period
either in Central Asia or in the northern parts of Europe; nor
is it possible to argue that because the mythologies of the differ-
ent branches of the Aryan race do not disclose the existence
of common deities, these mythologies must be taken to have
developed after the separation of the Aryan races from their
common home. Thus, for instance, we are told that though
the word Uṣhas occurs in Zend as Ushangh, and may be com-
pared to Greek Eos, Latin Aurora, Lithuanian Auszra, Teutonic
Austrô and Anglo-Saxon Eostra, yet it is only in the Vedic
mythology that we find Uṣhas raised to the dignity of the
goddess of the morning; and from this we are asked to infer
that the worship of the dawn was developed only on the
Indian soil. The theory of the Arctic home, however, makes
it impossible to argue in this way. If Vedic dieties are
clothed with attributes which are unmistakably polar in their
origin,—and in the case of Uṣhas, the polar character has been
shown to be unquestionable,—we cannot hold that the legends
pertaining to these deities were developed on the plains of
Central Asia. It was impossible for the Indian priests to
conceive or picture the splendours of the dawn in the way
we meet with in the Ṛig-Veda; for it has been shown that
the evanescent dawn, with which they were familiar, is quite
dissimilar in character to the Arctic dawn, the subject of the
28

434 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
Vedic hymns. And what applies to the dawn can be predic-
ated as well of other deities and myths, e. g., of Indra and
Vṛitra or the captive Waters, of Viṣhṇu hibernating for four
months in a year, or of Trita or the Third going down in a
well, or of the Ashvins rescuing or saving the gods from the
temporary affliction to which they were again and again sub-
jected. These very names may not be found in the Celtic or
the Teutonic mythology, but an examination of the latter has
been found to disclose the same polar characteristics which
are possessed by Vedic deities or myths; and so long as this
fundamental coincidence exists between the two, it is unreason-
able to contend that the mythologies of the different branches
of the Aryan race had no common origin, or that the resem-
blances between the names of the deities are more linguistic
than mythological. The destruction of the ancient Aryan
home by glaciation and deluge introduces a new factor in the
history of the Aryan civilisation; and any short-comings or
defects in the civilisation of the Aryan races, that are found to
have inhabited the northern parts of Europe in the beginning
of the Neolithic age, as distinguished from the civilisation
of the Asiatic Aryan races, must now be accounted for as the
result of a natural relapse into barbarism after the great
catastrophe. It is true that ordinarily we cannot conceive a
race that has once launched on a career of progress and civili-
sation suddenly retrograding or relapsing into barbarism. But
the same rule cannot be applied to the case of the continu-
ation of the ante-diluvian civilisation into post-diluvian times.
In the first place very few people could have survived a
cataclysm of such magnitude as the deluge of snow and ice;
and those that survived could hardly be expected to have
carried with them all the civilisation of the original home, and
introduced it intact in their new settlements, under adverse
circumstances, amongst the non-Aryan tribes in the north of
Europe or on the plains of Central Asia. We must also bear

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 435
in mind the fact that the climate of northern Europe and Asia,
though temperate at present, must have been very much colder
after the great deluge, and the descendants of those who had to
migrate to these countries from the Polar regions, born only
to a savage or nomadic life, could have, at best, preserved only
fragmentary reminiscences of the ante-diluvian culture and civi-
lisation of their forefathers living in the once happy Arctic home.
Under these circumstances we need not be surprised if the
European Aryas are found to be in an inferior state of civi-
lisation at the beginning of the Neolithic age. On the contrary
the wonder is that so much of the ante-diluvian religion or cul-
ture should have been preserved from the general wreck, caused
by the last Glacial epoch, by the religious zeal and industry
of the bards or priests of the Iranian or the Indian
Aryas. It is true that they looked upon these relics of the an-
cient civilisation, as a sacred treasure entrusted to them to be
scrupulously guarded and transmitted to future generations. Yet
considering the difficulties with which they had to contend, we
cannot but wonder how so much of the ante-diluvian civilisation,
religion, or worship was preserved in the Veda or the Avesta. If
the other Aryan races have failed to preserve these ancient
traditions so well, it would be unreasonable to argue therefrom
that the civilisation or the culture of these races was developed
after their separation from the common stock.
It has been shown previously that the climate of the Arctic
regions in the inter-Glacial period was so mild and temperate
as to be almost an approach to a perpetual spring, and that
there was then a continent of land round about the Pole, the
same being submerged during the glacial epoch. The primitive
Aryans residing in such regions must, therefore, have lived a
happy life. The only inconvenience experienced by them
was the long Arctic night; and we have seen how this
phenomenon has served to give rise to various myths or

436 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
legends describing the struggle between the powers of light and
darkness. The occurrence of the Arctic night, its tiresome
length, and the long expected morning light on the horizon
after some months were, naturally enough, the most import-
ant facts which attracted the attention of our primeval fore-
fathers, and it is no wonder if they believed it to be the grea-
test exploit of their gods when the beneficent dawn came dawn
ing up, after several months of darkness, from the nether world
of aerial waters, inaugurating a new yearly round of sacri-
fices, festivals, or other religious or social ceremonies. It was
the beginning of the Devayâna, when the powers of light cele-
brated their victory over the demons of darkness, and the
Child of the Morning, the Kumâra, the leader of the army of
gods, walked victoriously along the Devayâna path commencing
the cycle of human ages, or mânushâ yugâ, as mentioned in the
Ṛig-Veda. The Pitṛiyâna, or the walk of the Manes, corres-
ponded with the dark winter, the duration of which extended
in the original home from two to six months. This was the
period of rest or repose during which, as observed previously,
people refrained even from disposing the bodies of the dead
owing to the absence of sunshine. All social and religious
ceremonies or feasts were also suspended during this period as
the powers of darkness were believed to be in the ascendant.
In short, the oldest Aryan calendar was, as remarked by Dr.
Schrader, divided into two parts, a summer of seven or ten
months and a corresponding winter of five or two months. But
it seems to have been an ancient practice to reckon the year
by counting the recurrence of summers or winters rather than
by combining the two seasons. It is thus that we can account
for a year of seven or ten months in old times, or annual
sacrificial sattras extending over the same period. This
calendar is obviously unsuited to places to the south of the
Arctic circle; and the Aryans had, therefore, to change
or reform the same, as was done by Numa, in post-glacial

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 437
times, when, expatriated from their mother-land, they settled in
the northern parts of Europe and Central Asia. But the reminis-
cence of the Devayâna as a special period of sacrifices and cere-
monies was tenaciously preserved, and even now it is looked upon as
a season of special religious merit. We can, on this theory, easily
explain why the Gṛihya-Sûtras attach special importance to the
Uttarâyaṇa from a ceremonial point of view, and why death dur-
ing the Dakshiṇâyana is regarded as inauspicious. How the
inter-glacial year of seven or ten months was changed to a
year of twelve months in post-glacial times, and how the equi- .
noctial division which obtained at first on the analogy of the
Devayâna and the Pitṛiyâna, was subsequently altered to the
solstitial one, the old meaning of the word Uttarâyaṇa undergo-
ing (Orion, p. 25 f.) a similar change, are questions, which, though
important in the history of the Aryan calendar, are not relevant
in this place ; and we shall, therefore, proceed with the subject
in hand. It is urged by some writers that though the worship
of natural elements is found to obtain in several ancient Indo-
European religions, yet its beginnings cannot be supposed to go
back to the time of the common origin of the related peoples.
Dr. Schrader has ably refuted this view in the concluding pages
of his book on the pre-historic antiquities of Aryan peoples ;
and the theory of the Arctic home powerfully supports Dr.
Schrader in his conclusions. " If we put aside everything un-
safe and false," observes Dr. Schrader, " that Comparative My-
thology and History of Religion has accumulated on this subject,
we are solely, from the consideration of perfectly trustworthy
material, more and more driven, on all sides, to assume that the
common basis of ancient European religions was a worship of
the powers of Nature practised in the Indo-European period."*
* See Dr. Schrader's Pre His. Antiqui. Ary. Peoples, ..; ;
by Jevons, p. 418.

438 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
The fact that the Vedic deities like Uṣhas, the Âdityas, the
Ashvins or the Vṛitrahán are found invested with Polar cha-
racteristics, further goes to confirm the conclusion based on
linguistic grounds, or common etymological equations for sky,
morning, fire, light or other natural powers. In short, what-
ever be the stand-point from which we view the subject in
question, we are led to the conclusion that the shining sky
(Dyaus pitâ), the sun (Sûrya), the fire (Agni), the Dawn (Uṣhas),
the storm or thunder (Tânyatu) had already attained to the dig-
nity of divine beings or gods in the primeval period ; and etymo-
logical equations like Sanskrit yaj, Zend yaz and Greek azomai,
show that these gods were worshipped and sacrifices offered to
them to secure their favour even in primeval times. Whether
this worship originated, or, in other words, whether the
powers of nature were invested with divine honours only
in inter-glacial times, or in times anterior to it, cannot, as
stated above, be ascertained from the materials in our
hands at present. But this much is beyond question that the
worship of these elements, as manifestations of divine power,
had already become established amongst the undivided Aryans
in the Arctic home, and the post-diluvian Aryan religions
were developed from this ancient system of worship and
sacrifices. We have seen that the Ṛig-Veda mentions
the ancient sacrificers of the race like Manu, Aṅgirases,
Bhṛigus and others, and the fact that they completed
their sacrificial sessions in seven, nine or ten months proves
that they were the sacrificers of the undivided Aryans in their
Arctic home. It was these sacrificers who performed the
sacrifices of the people during a summer of seven or ten months
and worshipped the matutinal deities with offerings in primeval
times. But when the sun went down below the horizon, these
sacrificers naturally closed their sessions and made their offer-
ings only to Vṛitrahan, the chief hero in the struggle with
the demons of darkness, in order that he may, invigorated by

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 439
their offerings, eventually bring back the light of the dawn to
these worshippers. I do not mean to assert that an elaborate
system of sacrifices existed in inter-glacial times; but I do
maintain that sacrifice was the main ritual of the primeval
Aryan religion, and that it is a mistake to suppose that it origi-
nated or was invented only in post-glacial times. I have dwelt
at some length on the question of ancient religious worship and
ritual in this place because the theory of the Arctic home very
well exposes, in my opinion, the fallacious character of many of
the existing views on this subject.
A people, who had come to worship the powers of Nature
as manifestations of divine will and energy, who had a well-
developed language of their own, and who had already evolved
a legendary literature out of the Arctic conditions of the year
in their congenial home near the North Pole, may well be
expected to have made a good advance in civilisation. But we
have at present very few means by which we can ascertain
the exact degree of civilisation attained by the undivided
Aryans in their primitive home. Comparative Philology tells
us that primitive Aryans were familiar with the art of spinning
and weaving, knew and worked in metals, constructed boats
and chariots, founded and lived in cities, carried on buying
and selling, and had made considerable progress in agriculture.
We also know that important social or political institutions
or organisations, as, for instance, marriage or the laws of
property, prevailed amongst the forefathers of our race
in those early days; and linguistic palæontology furnishes us
with a long list of the fauna and the flora known to the
undivided Aryans. These are important linguistic discoveries,
and taking them as they are, they evidently disclose a state
of civilisation higher than that of the savages of the Neolithic
age. But in the light of the Arctic theory we are naturally
led to inquire if the culture of the primitive Aryans was con-
fined only to the level disclosed by Comparative Philology, or

440 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
whether it was of a higher type than the one we can predicate
of them simply on linguistic grounds. We have seen above
that in the case of the mythological deities and their worship
the Polar character of many of the deities at once enables us
to assign them to the primitive period even when their names
are not found in all the Aryan languages; and the results of
Comparative Philology regarding primitive Aryan culture will
have to be checked and revised in the same way. The very
fact that after compulsary dispersion from their mother-land
the surviving Aryans, despite the fragmentary civilisation they
carried with them, were able to establish their supremacy over
the races they came across in their migrations from the original
home at the beginning of the post-Glacial period, and that
they succeeded, by conquest or assimilation, in Aryanising
the latter in language, thought and religion under circumstances
which could not be expected to be favourable to them, is
enough to prove that the original Aryan civilisation must
have been of a type far higher than that of the non-Aryan races,
or than the one found among the Aryan races that migrated
southward after the destruction of their home by the Ice Age.
So long as the Aryan races inhabiting the northern parts of
Europe in the beginning of the Neolithic age were believed
to be autochthonous there was no necessity of going beyond
the results of Comparative Philology to ascertain the degree
of civilisation attained by the undivided Aryans. But now we
see that the culture of the Neolithic Aryans is obviously only
a relic, an imperfect fragment, of the culture attained by the
undivided Aryans in their Arctic home; and it would, there-
fore, be unreasonable to argue that such and such civilisation,
or culture cannot be predicated of the undivided Aryans
simply because words indicating the same are found only in
some and not in all the Aryan languages. In other words,
though we may accept the results of Comparative Philology
so far as they go, we shall have to be more cautious hereafter

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 441
in inferring that such and such a thing was not known to the
primitive Aryans because common etymological equations for
the same cannot be discovered in all the Aryan languages.
We have, it is true, no means of ascertaining how much of the
original civilisation was lost in the deluge, but we cannot,
on that account, deny that some portion of it must have been
irrecoverably lost in the great cataclysm that destroyed the
original home. Under these circumstances all that we can
safely assert is that the degree of culture disclosed by Compa-
rative Philology is the lowest or the minimum that can be pre-
dicated of the undivided Aryans. It is important to bear
this reservation in mind because undue importance is some-
times attached to the results of Comparative Philology by a
kind of reasoning which appeared all right so long the question
of the site of the original home was unsettled. But now that
we know that Aryan race and religion are both inter-Glacial
and their ultimate origin is lost in geological antiquity, it does
not stand to reason to suppose that the inter-Glacial Aryans
were a race of savages. The archæologists, it is true, have
established the succession of the ages of Stone, Bronze and
Iron ; and according to this theory the Aryan race must have
once been in the Stone age. But there is nothing in archæology
which requires us to place the Stone age of the Aryan races
in post-Glacial times; and when Comparative Philology has
established the fact that undivided Aryans were acquainted
with the use of metals, it becomes clear that the degree of
civilisation reached by the undivided Aryans in their Arctic
home was higher than the culture of the Stone age or even that
of the age of metals. I have referred in the first chapter of
the book to the opinion of some eminent archæologists that
the metal age was introduced into Europe from other
countries either by commerce or by the Indo-European race
going there from outside, and the theory of the Arctic home
with its inter-Glacial civilisation lends support to this view.

442 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
I might in passing here refer to an instance which illustrates
the danger of relying exclusively on Comparative Philology in
this respect. Dr. Schrader has shown that copper, at any rate,
was known to the primitive Aryans; and he admits the possi-
bility that this metal may, in isolated cases, have been employ-
ed in the manufacture of weapons like fighting knives or lance-
heads. But we are told that there are linguistic difficulties
which prevent us from assuming that gold and silver were
known in the primitive period. On an examination of the sub-
ject it will, however, be seen that in cases like these the phi-
lologist relies too much on his own methods or follows them
too rigidly. For instance khalkos (copper or bronze) is men-
tioned by Homer as a medium of exchange (II. vii, 472); and
Comparative Philology discloses two etymological equa-
tions, one derived from the root *mei (Sans. me) denoting
'barter,' and the other derived from the Sanskrit krî, Greek
priamai, meaning purchase. The Ṛig-Veda (VIII. I, 5) also
mentions a measure of value called shulka, and, as the word is
used in later Sanskrit literature to denote a small payment made
at a toll-house, it is not unlikely that shulka originally meant a
small coin of copper or bronze similar in character to the
khalkos mentioned by Homer. Now it is true that ordinarily
Greek kh, is represented by h in Sanskrit, and that if this
rule be rigidly applied to the present case it would not be
possible to phonetically identify khalkos with shulka. Philo-
logists have, therefore, tried to compare khalkos with Sans-
krit hriku or hliku. But, as remarked by Dr. Schrader, the
connection seems to be altogether improbable. Hrîku is not
a Vedic word, nor does it mean copper or bronze. Despite
the phonetic difficulty,—and the difficulty is not so serious as it
seems to be at the first sight, for Sanskrit sh is represented by
k in Greek, and this k sometimes gives place to the aspir-
ated kh,—I am, therefore, inclined to identify khalkos with
shulka; and if this is correct, we must conclude that undivided

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

444 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
Prof. Max Muller thinks, progressive, but, for the time at least,
necessarily retrogressive savages working only with such residua
of the ante-diluvian civilisation as were saved from its general
wreck.*
But though the Vedic or Aryan people and their religion
and culture can thus be traced to the last inter-glacial period,
and though we know that the degree of culture attained by
the primitive Aryans was of a higher type than some scholars
seem to be willing to assign to them, yet there are many points
in the primitive Aryan history which still remain unsolved.
For instance, when and where the Aryan race was differenti-
ated from other human races, or how and where the Aryan
speech was developed, are important questions from the
anthropological point of view, but we have, at present, no
means to answer the same satisfactorily. It is quite possible
that other human races might have lived with the Aryans
in their home at this time; but the Vedic evidence is silent
on this point. The existence of the human race is traced by
geologists to the Tertiary era; and it is now geologically cer-
tain that the gigantic changes wrought on this globe by
glacial epochs were witnessed by man. But anthropology does
not supply us with any data from which we can ascertain
when, where, or how the human race came to be differenti-
ated according to colour or language. On the contrary, it is
now proved that at the earliest date at which human remains
have been found, the race was already divided into several
sharply distinguished types; and this, as observed by Laing,
leaves the question of man's ultimate origin completety open
to speculation, and enables both monogenists and polygenists
to contend for their respective views with plausible argu-
ments and without fear of being refuted by facts.† The evid-
ence, set forth in the foregoing pages, does not enable us to

• Max Muller's Last Essays, pp. 172 ff.
  † Laing's Human Origins, pp. 404-5.

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 445
solve any of these questions regarding the ultimate origin of
the human race or even of the Aryan people or their language
and religion. We have nothing in this evidence for ascert-
aining how far the existence of the Aryan race can be traced
back to pre-glacial, as distinguished from inter-glacial times;
or whether the race was descended from a single pair (mo-
nogeny) or plurality of pairs (polygeny) in the remotest ages.
The traditional evidence collected by us only warrants us in
taking back the Aryan people and their civilisation from the
Temperate zone in post-glacial to the Arctic regions in inter-
glacial times. It is true that Aryans and their culture or religion
cannot be supposed to have developed all of a sudden at the
close of the last inter-glacial period, and the ultimate origin
of both must, therefore, be placed in remote geological
times. But it is useless to speculate on this question without
further evidence, and in the present state of our knowledge
we must rest content with the result that though Aryan
race or religion can be traced to the last inter-glacial-
period yet the ultimate origin of both is still lost in geological
antiquity.
I cannot conclude this chapter without briefly examining
the bearing of our results on the views entertained by Hindu
theological scholars regarding the origin, character and autho-
rity of the Vedas. It is a question which has been dis-
cussed with more or less acuteness, subtlety, or learning ever
since the days of the Brâhmaṇas; and from a purely theologi-
cal point of view I do not think there remains anything to be
now said upon it. Again, for the purposes of scientific investi-
gation, it is necessary to keep he theological and the antiqua-
rian aspect of the question quite distinct from each other. Yet
when our investigation, conducted on strict scientific lines, is
completed, we may usefully compare our conclusions with the
theological views and see how far they harmonise or clash
with each other. In fact no Hindu who reads a book like the

446 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
present, can avoid making such a comparison ; and we shall
be lightening his task by inserting in this place a few remarks
on this subject. According to the view held by Hindu theo-
logians, the Vedas are eternal (nitya), without a beginning
(anâdi), and also not created by a human author (a-pauru-
sheya); and we are told that these attributes have been predi-
cated of our sacred books from the most ancient times known
to our divines or philosophers. The whole of the third Volume
of Dr. Muir's Original Sanskrit Texts is devoted to the
discussion of this subject, a number of original passages and
arguments bearing on which are there collected, including
Sâyaṇa's lucid summary in the introduction to his commen-
tary on the Ṛig-Veda ; and more recently the late Mahâ-
mahopâdhyâya Râjârâma Shâstri Bodas, the editor of the
Bombay edition of the Ṛig-Veda, has done the same in a
Sanskrit pamphlet, the second edition of which is now pub-
lished by his son, Mr. M. R. Bodas, of the Bombay High Court
Bar. I shall, therefore, give in this place only a summary of
the different views of Hindu theologians, without entering into
the details of the controversy which can be studied from
the above books. The question before us is whether the Vedic
hymns, that is, not only the words of the hymns but also the
religious system found or referred to therein, are the composi-
tions of the Ṛiṣhis to whom they are assigned in the Anu-
kramaṇikâs, or the ancient Indexes of the Veda, in the sense
in which the Shâkuntala is a composition of Kâlidâsa ; or
whether these hymns existed from times immemorial, in other
words, whether they are eternal and without a beginning. The
hymns themselves are naturally the best evidence on the
point. But, as shewn by Dr. Muir in the second chapter
(pp. 218–86) of the Volume above mentioned, the utterances of
the Vedic Ṛiṣhis on this point are not unanimous. Thus side
by side with passages in which the Vedic bards have express-
ed their emotions, hopes or fears, or prayed for worldly comforts

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 447
and victory over their enemies, condemning evil practices like
gambling with dice (X, 34), or have described events, which on
their face seem to be the events of the day; side by side with
passages where the poet says that he has made (kṛi), generated
(jan), or fabricated (taksh) a new (navyasî or apūrvya) hymn,
much in the same way as a carpenter fashions a chariot (I, 47,
2; 62, 13; II, 19, 8; IV, 16, 20; VIII, 95, 5; X, 23, 6; 39,
14; 54, 6; 160, 5; &c.); or with hymns in which we are plainly
told that they are composed by so and so, the son of so and so,
(I, 60, 5; X, 63, 17; 67, 1; &c.), there are to be found in
the Ṛig-Veda itself an equally large number of hymns where the
Ṛiṣhis state in unmistakable terms that the hymns sung by them
were the results of inspiration from Indra, Varuṇa, Soma, Aditi,
or some other deity; or that the Vedic verses (ṛichaḥ) directly
emanated from the Supreme Puruṣha, or some other divine
source; or that they were given by gods (devatta), or generated
by them and only seen or perceived (pashyat) by the poets in
later times, (I, 37, 4; II, 23, 2; VII, 66, 11; VIII, 59, 6; X, 72,
1; 58, 8; 90, 9; &c.). We are also told that Vâch (Speech)
is nityâ or eternal (VIII, 75, 6, also cf. X, 125); or that the gods
generated the divine Vâch and also the hymns (VIII, 100, 11;
101, 16; X, 88, 8). The evidence of the Vedic hymns does not,
therefore, enable us to decide the question one way or the
other; but if the composition of the hymns is once ascribed to
human effort, and once to divine inspiration or to the gods di-
rectly, it is clear that at least some of these old Ṛiṣhis believed the
hymns to have been sung under inspiration or generated directly
by the goddess of speech or other deities. We may reconcile
the former of these views with the passages where the hymns are
said to be made by human effort, on the supposition that the poets
who sang the hymns believed themselves to be acting under divine
inspiration. But the explanation fails to account for the statement

448 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.
that the Ṛik, the Yajus, and the Sâman, all emanated from the
Supreme Puruṣha or the gods ; and we must, therefore, conclude
that the tradition about the eternity of the Vedas, or their divine
origin is as old as the Veda itself. Accordingly, when we come
to the Brâhmaṇas and the Upaniṣhads, we naturally find the
same view prevailing. They tell us that the Ṛig-Veda pro-
ceeded from Agni (fire), the Yajur-Veda from Vâyu (wind), and
the Sâma-Veda from Sûrya (the sun), and that these three
deities got their warmth from Prajâpati who practised tapas
for the purpose, (Shat. Brâh, XI, 5, 8, 1 ff; Ait, Brâh. V,
32-34; Chhân. Up. IV, 17, 1); or that the Vedas are the
breathings of the Supreme Being (Bṛih. Up. II, 4, 10); or
that Prajâpati by means of the eternal Vâch created the Vedas
and everything else in this world ; and the same view is met
with in the Smṛitis like those of Manu (I, 21-23) and others, or
in the Purâṇas, several extracts from which are given by Dr.
Muir in the volume above referred to. It is admitted that the
Vedas, with other things, are destroyed, at the end of a Kalpa,
by the deluge (pralaya) which overtakes the world at the time.
But we are told that this does not affect the question of the
eternity of the new Kalpa by Brahmâ himself after the grand
deluge, and by the Ṛiṣhis, who survive, after minor deluges.
The authority generally quoted in support of this view
is a verse from the Mahâbhârata (Shânti-Parvan, Chap.
210, v. 19) which says, "The great Ṛiṣhis, empowered by
Svayambhû (the self-born), formerly obtained, through tapas
(religious austerity), the Vedas and the Itihâsas, which
had disappeared at the end of the (preceding) Yuga."*
The Ṛiṣhis are, therefore, called the seers and not

• The verse is as follows:— युगान्तेऽन्तर्हितान् वेदान् सेतिहासान् म-
  हर्षयः । लेभिरे तपसा पूर्वमनुज्ञाता स्वयंभुवा ॥ Bhavabhûti, Utt, 1, 15,
  similarly says in another connection:— ब्रह्मर्षयो ब्रह्महिताय तप्त्वा । परः
  सहस्राः शरदस्तपांसि ॥ एतान्यपश्यन् गुरवः पुराणाः । स्वाम्येव तेजांसि तपो-
  मयानि ॥ Also Cf. Ṛig. VIII, 59, 6, quoted infra.

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 449
the makers of the Vedic hymns; and the personal designa-
tion of some Shâkhâs, branches or recensions of Vedas, as
Taittirîya, Kâṭhaka, &c., as well as the statements in the Vedic
hymns, which say that so and so has made or generated such
and such a hymn, are understood to mean that the particu-
lar Shâkhâ or hymn was perceived, and only perceived, by
the particular Ṛiṣhi or poet. It is not, however, till we come
to the works of the authors and expositors of the different
schools of Hindu philosophy (darshanas) that we find the
doctrine of the eternity of the Vedas subjected to a searching
examination; and, as remarked by Dr. Muir, one who reads
the discussions of these writers cannot fail to be struck "with
the acuteness of their reasoning, the logical precision with
which their arguments are presented, and the occasional live-
liness and ingenuity of their illustrations."* They all bear wit-
ness to the fact that so far as tradition went,—an unbroken
tradition of great antiquity,—there was no remembrance of
the Vedas having been ever composed by or ascribed to any
human author; and taking into consideration the learning and
the piety of these scholars, their testimony must be regarded
as an unimpeachable proof of the existence of such a tradition,
which was considered ancient several centuries before the
Christian era. But though a tradition whose high antiquity can
be so well established deserves to be seriously considered in
our investigations regarding the character of the Vedas, yet
it is, after all, a negative proof, showing, it may be urged,
nothing more than no human author of the Veda has been
known from times beyond the memory of all these ancient
scholars. Jaimini, the author of Mimâmsâ Sutras, therefore,
further deduces (I, 1, 5) the eternity of the Vedas from the re-
lation or connection between words and their meanings, which
he holds to be eternal (autpattika) and not conventional. 'A
word is defined to be an aggregate of letters in a particular

• Muir, O. S. T., Vol. III, p. 58.
  29

450 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS.

order, and its sense is said to be conveyed by these letters fol-
lowing each other in a definite succession. But Grammarians
are not satisfied with this view, and maintain that the sense of
a word is not expressed by the aggregate of its constituent
letters which are transient, but by a certain super-sensuous-
entity, called sphoṭa (i. e., manifester, from sphuṭ), which su-
pervenes the aggregate of the letters as soon as they are pro-
nounced, and reveals their meaning. Jaimini denies that there
are words in the Vedas which denote any transient objects, and
as the Vedic words and their sense are eternal, it follows, ac-
cording to him, that the Vedas are self-demonstrative, or that
they shine, like the sun, by their own light, and are, therefore
perfect and infallible. If particular parts of the Vedas are
designated after some Ṛiṣhis, it does not, we are told, prove
those sages to have been their authors, but merely the teachers
who studied and handed them down. Bâdarâyaṇa, as inter-
preted by Shaṅkarâchârya (I, 3, 26–33), the great leader of the
Vedânta School, accepts the doctrine of the eternity of sound
or words, but adds that it is the species to which the word be-
longs, and not the word itself, that is eternal or indestruct-
ible, and, therefore, though the names of deities, like Indra
and others, which are all created and hence liable to destruc-
tion, are mentioned in the Veda, it does not affect the question
of its eternity as the species to which Indra and others are said
to belong is still eternal. In short, Vedic names and forms of
species are eternal, and it is by remembering these that the
world is created by Brahmâ at the beginning of each Kalpa,
(Maitr. Up., VI, 22). The Veda is, therefore, the original
WORD the source from which every thing else in the world
emanated, and as such it cannot but be eternal; and it is
interesting, as pointed out by Prof. Max Muller in his Lectures
on Vedânta Philosophy, to compare this doctrine with that of
Divine Logos of the Alexandrian Schools in the West. The
Naiyâyikas, on the other hand, deny the doctrine of the