Page 404 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE COWS' WALK 189
establish the existence of an ancient home of the ancestors of
the Vedic people in the circum-polar region. The sacrificial
sessions of the Navagvas and the Dashagvas, the .legend of
Dirghatamas growing old in the tenth month, the tradition
about the ancient year of five seasons, or the yoking of seven or
ten horses to the chariot of the sun, all go to strengthen the same
view; and the A vestic passages regarding the duration of Tishtrya' s
fight with Apaosha, the Purap.ic tradition about Indra's being
the master of a hundred sacrifices or the destroyer of a hundred
cities, the existence of a series of one hundred nightly Soma
sacrifices, which though obsolete long since could not have found
place in the sacrificial works as Rdtri-sattras, unless they were
ancient sacrifices performed, as their name indicates, during
night,-these and many other minor facts noticed before, further
.corroborate, if corroboration be needed, our theory regarding
the original home of the Aryans near the North Pole. It must,
however, be stated here that I do not wish to imply in any way
that the numerous sacrificial details found in the later Vedic
literature were in vogue or were known in these ancient times.
On the contrary I am prepared to believe that in all probability
these ancient sacrifices were very simple in character. The ancient
priests probably went on sacrificing from day to day and after-
wards from night to night, without any idea that the system was
capable of giving rise to various rigid annual Sattras. The sacri-
fice was the only ritual of their religion; and howsoever simple
such sacrifices might have been in ancient times, it was almost a
matter of duty, at least with the priests, to perform them every
day. It was also a means, as remarked by me elsewhere, to keep
up the calendar in ancient times, as the yearly round of sacrifices
closely followed the course of the sun. It is from this latter point
of view that the ancient sacrificial system is important for his-
torical or antiquarian purposes, and I have examined it above in
the same light. This examination, it will be seen, has resulted in
the discovery of a number of facts which lead us directly to,
and can be satisfactorily explained only by the theory of the
original Arctic home; and when our conclusions are thus support-
ed by the hymns of the Rig-Veda on the one hand, and the sacri-
ficial literature on the other, I think, we need have no doubt
.about their correctness.