Page 181 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

166 SAMAGRA TILAK - 2 • THE ORION

Parsis must have separated from. the Indian Aryas in the latter part
of the Orion period, that is to say, between 3000 to 2500 B. C.;
while, if we suppose that the separation occurred at a considerable
later date, a Greek writer in the fifth century before Chirst would
certainly have spoken of it as a recent event. Aristotle and Eudoxus
have gone still further and placed the era of Zoroaster as much as
6000 to 5000 years before Plato. The number of years here given
is evidently traditional, but we can at any rate infer from it this
much thaf at the time of Aristotle ( about 320 B. C. ) Zoroaster
was considered to have lived at a very remote period of antiquity;-
and if the era of Zoroaster is to be considered so old, afortiori,
the period of the Vedas must be older still. Then we have further
to consider the fact that an epic poem was written in Greek in abOut
900 or 1000 B. C. The language of this epic is so unlike that of the
Vedic hymns that we must suppose it to have been composep long
time after the Greeks left their ancient horne and travelled west-
ward. It is not; therefore, at all improbable that they separated
after the formation of the legends of Orion and before the vernal
equinox was in the KrittikAs that is, between 3500 to 3000 B. C.
Finally we can essily uqderstand how the acutest and most learned
of Indian theologians and scholars believed the Vedas to have come
down to them from an unknown period of antiquity. A revelation
need not necessarily be anddi, or without a beginning. The history
of the Bible and the Koran shows us that a revelation can be con-
ceived to be made at a particular period of time. If so, the mere fact
that it is believed to be revealed does not account for the opinion
entertained by the Hindu theological writers that the Veda has
come to them from times beyond the memory of man. Some of
these writers lived several centuries before Christ and it is quite
natural to suppose that their opinions were formed from traditions
current in their times. The periods of the Vedic antiquity we have
determined render such an explanation highly probable. According
to the Christian theology, the world was created only about 4000
years before Christ; or, in other words, the notions of antiquity
entertained by these Christian writers could not probably go beyond
4000 B. C. and not being able to say anything about the period
preceding it, they placed the beginning of the world at about 4000
B. C. The Indian theologians may be supposed to have acted some-
what in the same manner. I have shewn that the most active of
the Vedic period commenced at about 4000 B. C., and there are