Page 521 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

302 SAMAGRA m.AK- 2 • THE ARCTIC HOME

times, but have proved that the Polar regions were invaded, at
.least twice, by glaciation which destroyed their genial climate.
Thus it is now a settled scientific fact that the Arctic regions were
once characterised by warm and short winters and genial and
long summers, a sort of perpetual spring, and that this condition
of things was totally upset or reversed by the advent of the Glacial
period which made winters long and severe and summers short
and cold. The description of the climatic changes introduced by
Angra Mainyu into the Airyana Vaejo is, therefore, just what
a modern geologist would ascribe to the Glacial epoch; and
when the description is so remarkably and unexpectedly corro-
borated by the latest scientific researches, I fail to see on what
ground we can lightly set it aside as mythical or imaginary. If
some Zend scholars have done so in the past, it was because
geological knowledge was not then sufficiently advanced to
establish the probability of the description contained in the
Avesta. But with new materials before us which go to confirm
the Avestic description of the Airyana Vaejo in every detail, we
shall be acting unwisely if we decline to revise the conclusions
of Zend scholars arrived at some years ago on insufficient materials.
When we look at the question from this point of view, we have
to place the site of the Airyana Vaejo in the Arctic regions,
where alone we can have a winter of ten months at the present
day. We can escape from such a conclusion only by denying the
possibility that the passage in question contains any traditional
account of the ancient home of the Iranians; and this course
seems to have been adopted by some Zend scholars of the day.
But with the Vedic evidence, set forth and discussed in the
previous chapters, before us, we need not have any of those
apprehensions which have hitherto led many Zend scholars to
err on the side of caution and moderation. We have seen that
there are strong grounds for holding that the ancient Indo-
European year was a year of ten months followed by a long night
of two months; in other words, it was a year of ten summer months
and two winter months, that is, exactly of the same kind as the
one which prevailed in the Airyana Va€ljo before the happy land
was invaded by the evil spirit. The word for summer in Zend is
hama, the same as Sanskrit sama, which means " a year " in the
~ig-Veda. The period of ten summer months mentioned in the
Avesta would, therefore, mean a year of ten months' sunshine,