Page 175 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

160 SAMAGRA TJLAK- 2 • THE ORION
the hymns distinctly speak of older hymns or bards, while in
~ig. x. 99. 9 the hymns are said to proceed directly from the puru-
,ha or the sacrificial pe~sonage. All that we can therefore legiti-
mately say is that the hymns, which contain older traditions and
legends e. g., of the ~ibhus and V;i~bakapi, must have been
composed in the Orion period. Some of the hymns may even
be still older and some later, but generally speaking we may
suppose that.4000 and 2500 B. C. are the limits of this period.
This may require us to assume the existence of some Vedic verses
at a time when the Hindus, the Greeks and the Parsis lived toge-
ther. Some scholars may hesitate to accept such a conclusion;
But so far as I know the conclusion is not inconsistent with the
results of comparative Philology or Mythology. Prof. Max Miiller
in his Biographies of wo;ds ( pp. 188-198 ) gives a list of about
sixty mythological names which may be shewn to be common
to Greek and Sanskrit. • If so many mythological names can
be shewn to be phonetically identical it is impossible to suppose
that no songs, celebrating the deeds of these deities, existed in
the lndo-Gerinanic period. Westphal has already proved the
exis~ence of poetry in the Indo-Germanic period, and Dr. Kuhn
has endeavoured to trace whole formulae back to the beginning
of Indo-European poetry. Verbal coincidences such as, Sk. pada,
Av. padha, Gk. pous, all meaning a metrical foot, again point to
the ·same conclusion. t The results of comparative Philology
are therefore, not only not inconsistent with, but on the contrary
corroborate the conclusions we have independently· deduced
from the astronomical references and allusions recorded in the
old Vedic literature. But I would not make my case rest on such
grounds. It must be remembered that we have not been speculat-
ing in any way about the oldest Vedic periods. Our conclusions
have been based on expre'Ss statements and texts· in the Vedic
literature and unless the texts themselves are questioned or other
more reasonable interpretations suggested, we shall not be
. -* For instance ,t.'ihhtt is compared to Greek 01jJleus Sa1am:i to Gk.
E/~~s, T'rit'-·,z to Gk. &th1·os, D.~.zha!lltzr to Gk. De,z/Jhcnlcs. I have already
ref~rred to his suggestion regardiug the comparison of ·vrillt;i!.·api.
with the Eli~·,i}tzi·os. If all these deities existed in the Indo-Germanic
period, why not .their hymns 1
t See Dr. Schrader's Pre-historic Antiquities of Aryan Peoples,
Part I, Chap. II;. pp. 27, 28