Page 182 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

CONCLUSION 167

grounds for carrying it ~k still further. The form of the hymns
might have been more or less modified in later times; but the molter
remained the same and coming down from such a remote anti-
quity it could have been easily believed by Jaimini, Papini and the
Bramhavldin of old to have been in existence almost from the be-
sinning of the world, or rather the beginning of all known things.
We can thus satisfactorily account for all the opinions an~ tradi-
tions current about the age of the Vedas amongst ancient and
modern scholars in India and Europe, if we place the Vedic pe!•od
at about 4000 B. C., in strict accordance with the astronomical
references and facts recorded in the ancient literature of India.
When everything can thus be co1_1sistently explained, I leave it to
scholars to decide whether the above period should" or-should not
be accepted as determining, as correctly as it is poss1ble to do .
onder the circumstances, the oldest period of Aryan civilization.
Jt is the unerring clock of the heavens that has helped us in deter-
mining it, and it is, in my opinion, hardly probable to discover
better means for the purposes. The evidence was in danger of being
obliterated out of the surface of the heavens when the Greeks
borrQwed their astronomical, terminoloay from the Egyptians.
But it has fortuna~ely escaped and outlived, not only this, but also
another thereatencd attack when it was proposed in England and
Germany to name the constellation of Orion after Nelson or
Napoleon as a muk of respect for these heroes. The bold and
brilliant Orion, with his attendant Canis. preserves f9r us the
memory of far more important and sacred times in the history of
the Aryan race.