Page 528 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

THE A VESTIC EVIDENCE 309
But there is this difference between the two that while the
Biblical deluge is of water and rain, the Avestic deluge is of
snow and l.ce; and the latter not only does not conflict with
geological evidence but is, on the contrary, fully and unexpe-
ctedly confirmed by it. Secondly, the description that " a year
seemed only as a day " to the inhabitants of this Vara, and that
the sun and stars " rose only once a year therein, " serves, in
an unmistakable manner, to fix the geographical position ·of
this Vara in the region round about the North Pole; for nowhere
on the surface of the earth can we have a year-long day-and-
night except at the Pole. Once the position of Yima's Vara is
thus fixed the position of the Airyana Vaejo is at once deter-
mined; for Yima's Vara, as stated in the Mainyo-i-khard, must
obviously be located in the Airyana Vaejo. Here is, therefore
another argument for locating the Airyana Vaejo in the extreme
north and not to the west of the ancient Iran, as Spiegel,
Darmesteter and others have done. For whether Yima's Vara
be real or mythical, we cannot suppose that the knowledge of
a year-long day and of the single rising of the sun during the
whole year was acquired simply by a stretch of imagination, and
that it is a mere accident that it tallies so well with the descrip-
tion of the Polar day and night. The authors of the Fargard
may not have themselves witnessed these phenomena, but there
can be no doubt that they knew these facts by tradition; and if
so, we must suppose that their remote ancestors must have
acquired this knowledge by personal experience in their home
near the North Pole. Those that locate the Airyana Vaejo in
the extreme east of the Iranian highland try to account for ten
months winter therein by assuming that a tradition of a decre-
ase in the earth's temperature was still in the mind of the
author of this Fargard, or that the altitude of the tableland,
where the Oxus and the Jaxartes take their rise, was far higher
in ancient times than at present, thereby producing a cold cli-
mate. Both these explanations are however artificial and unsatis-
factory. It is true that a high altitude produces a cold climate but
in the present instance the climate of the Airyana Vaejo was
mild and genial before the invasion of Angra Mainyu, and we
must, therefore, suppose that the Iranian table-land was
not elevated at first, until Angra Mainyu upheaved it and pro-
duced a cold climate. But the present altitude of the plateau is