Page 527 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

308 SAMAGRA TILAK. - 2 • THE AllCTIC HOME
tion, by giving us a graphic description of the actual advent of
ice and now which ruined the ancient Iranian Paradise. This
Fargard is really a supplement to the first and contains a more
detailed account of the Airyana Vaejo and a description of the
paradisiacal life enjoyed there before Angra Mainyu affiicted
it with the plague of winter and snow. This is evident from the
fact that the coming of the severe winter is foretold in this
Fargard and Yima is warned to prepare against it; while in the
first Fargard the happy land is described as actually ruined by
Angra Mainyu's invasion. Darmesteter divides this Fargard
into two parts the first comprising the first twenty ( or according
to Spiegel forty-one) paragraphs, and the second the remain-
ing portion of the Fargard. In the first part Ahura Mazda is said
to have asked king Yima the ruler of the Airyana Vaejo, who
is called Sruto Airyene vaejahe, 'famous in Airyana Vaejo ', to
receive the law from Mazda; but Yima refused to become the
bearer of the law and he was, therefore, directed by Ahura
Mazda to keep his people happy and make them increase. Yima
is accordingly represented as making his men thrive and incre-
ase by keeping away death and disease from them, and by thrice
enlarging the boundaries of the country which had become too
narrow for its inhabitants. Whether this fact represents a gradual
expansion of the oldest Aryan settlements in the Arctic home
we need not stop to inquire. The second part of the Fargard
opens with a meeting of the celestial gods called by Ahura
Mazda, and " the fair Yima, the good shephered of high renown
in the Airyana Vaejo, " is said to have attended this meeting
with all his excellent mortals. It was at this meeting that Yima
was distinctly warned by Ahura Mazda that fatal winters were
going to fall on the happy land and destroy everything therein.
To provide against this calamity the Holy One advised Yima
to make a Vara or encloure, and remove there the seeds of every
kind of animals and plants for preservation. Yima made the
Vara accordingly, and the Fargard informs us that in this Vara
the sun, the moon and the stars " rose but once a year " and
that " a year seemed only as a day " to the inhabitants thereof.
The Fargard then closes with the description of the happy life
led by the inhabitants of this Vara of which Zarathushtra and
.his son Urvatadnara are said to be the masters or overseers.
Yima's Vara here described is something like Noah's ark.