Page 248 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

tHE ARCTIC -R'EGIONS .' 35
highly probable. For that purpose, we must either wait uiltil the
existence of the Aryan race, within the Arctic region in Inter-
Glacial times, is proved by new archreological discoveries, or
failing them, try to examine the ancient traditions and beliefs of
the race, incorporated in such admittedly oldest Aryan books,
as the Vedas and the Avesta, and see if they justify us in predicat-
ing the Inter-Glacial existence of the Aryan people. It is admitted
that many of the present explanations of these traditions and
legends are unsatisfactory, and as our knowledge of the the ancient
man is increased, or becomes more definite, by new discoveries
in archreology, geology or anthropology, these explanations will
have to be revised from time to time and any defects in them, due
to our imperfect understanding of the sentiments, the habits
and even the surroundings of the ancient man, corrected. That
human races have preserved their ancient traditions is undoubted,
though some or many of them may have become distorted in
course of time, and it is for us to see if they do or do not accord
with what we know of the ancient man from latest scientific
researches. In the case of the Vedic traditions, myths and beliefs,
we have the further advantage that they were collected thousands
of years ago, and handed down unchanged from that remote time.
It is, therefore, not unlikely, that we may find traces of the primeval
Polar home in these oldest books. If the Aryan man did live
within the Arctic circle in early times, especially as a portion of
the ~ig-Veda is still admittedly unintelligible on any of the
existing methods of interpretation, although the words and
expressions are plain and simple in many places. Dr. Warren-
has quoted some Vedic traditions along with those of other na-
tions, in support of his theory that the Arctic regions were the
birth-place of the human race. But the attempt, so far as the
Vedic texts are concerned, is desultory, as it was bound to be
inasmuch as these Vedic legends and texts have, as yet, never
been examined by any Vedic scholar from the new standpoint
furnished by the latest scientific researches and as Dr. Warren
had to depend entirely on the existing translations. It is propos-
. ed, therefore, . to examine the Vedas from this new point of
view; but before doing so if is necessary to ascertain such peculiar
. characteristics, or what in logic are called differentice, of the
·-Polar or the· Arctic regions,. as are not found elsewhere on the
surface of the globe, :so .that if we meet withthem in the Vedic