Page 505 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

286 SAMAGRA TILAK - 2 • THE ARCTIC HOME
they occurred to me. But the question, howsoever interesting,
is not relevant to the subject in hand, and I must give up the
temptation of going into it more fully in this place. The ques-
tion of ten incarnations is also similarly connected with the ten
golden kings, or the ten gods mentioned in the Atharva Veda,
or the ten incarnations of Verethreghna in the A vesta. The
ten incarnations in the Avesta ( Yt. VXIV) are, a wind, a bull,
a horse, a camel, a boar, a youth, a raven, a ram, a buck and a
man; and four of them, viz., a horse, a boar, a youth and a man
seem to correspond with Kalki, Varaha, Vamapa and Rama
amongst the ten A vataras mentioned in the PuraJ;Jic literature.
This shows that the conception of the ten Avataras was, at any
rate, Indo-Iranian in origin, and it is no doubt interesting to
follow it up and trace its development on the Indian soil. The
Matsya, the Kilrma, the Varaha, the Narasimha, the Vamana
and, as we have now seen, · the Rama A vatara can be more or
less traced to the :Rig-Veda. But it would require much patient
research to thoroughly investigate these matters, and I cannot
do more than to throw out such hints as have occurred to me,
and ask the reader to take them for what they are worth. If the
Arctic theory is established, it will throw a good deal of new
light not only on the Vedic but also on the Purapic mythology,
and it will then be necessary to revise, in some cases entirely
recast, the current explanations of both. But the work as stated
previously cannot be undertaken in a book which is mainly
devoted to the examination of evidence in support of the new
theory.
We have now discussed most of the Vedic legends likely
to throw any light on the main point of our inquiry. There
are many other incidents, which can be better explained on the
Arctic theory than at present. For instance, we can now
well understand why Mitra and Varuna were originally con-
ceived as two correlated deities; for according to our theory
they would represent half-year-long light and darkness in the
Paradise of the Aryan race, and Varupa can then be very well
described as " embracing the nights," ( k~hapaiJ pari ~hasvaje,
VIII, 41, 3 ). But we cannot go into all these points in this place.
What I have said is, I think, sufficient to convince any one that
there are a number of incidents in the Vedic myths, which are
inexplicable on the theory of a diurnal struggle between light