Page 520 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE A VESTIC EVIDENCE 301
result of Angra Mainyu's counter-action, meaning thereby that
before the invasion of Angra Mainyu different climatic conditions
prevailed in that region. This view is further strengthened by
the consideration that the Iranians could never have placed their
Paradise in a land of severe winter and snow. Bunsen has, there-
fore, rightly observed that the Airyana Valljo was originally a
perfect country and had a very mild climate, until the hostile
deity created a powerful serpent and snow, so that only two
months of summer remained while winter prevailed during ten.
In short, the passage in question speaks of a sudden change in
the climate of the original home, a change that converted the
paradise into a kind of ice-bound land with long and severe
winters. If we, therefore, want to know what the land was like
before the invasion of Angra Mainyu, we must reverse the climatic
conditions that obtained after the invasion, and suppose that
this cradle of the Iranian race was situated in the extreme north
where long cool summers of ten months and short mild winters
of two months originally prevailed. It was Angra Mainyu who
altered this genial climate by means of glaciation and rendered
it unbearable to man. The · description of the two summer
months after the invasion, viz., that " These were cold as to the
water, cold as to the earth, cold as to the trees, " shows that after
glaciation even the summer climate was unsuited for human
habitation.
We have stated above that the passage in question indicates
a sudden change in the climate of the Airyana Vaejo, converting
ten months summer and two months winter into ten months
severe winter and two months cold summer. Thirty or forty
years ago such a statement or proposition would have been
regarded not only bold, but impossible or almost insane, for the
geological knowledge of the time was not sufficiently advanced
to establish the existence of a mild climate round about the
North Pole in ancient times. It was probably this difficulty which
stared Zend scholars in the face when they declined to place the
Airyana Vaejo in the far north, in spite of the plain description
clearly indicating its northernmost position. Happily the recent
discoveries in Geology and Archaeology have not only removed
this difficulty by establishing, on scientific grounds, the existence
.of a warm and genial climate near the North Pole in inter-glacial