Page 531 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

312 SAMAGRA TILAK- 2 • THE ARCTIC HOME
Darmesteter Spiegel
the land wherein footprints 60 Which now behold the
even of sheep may still be feet of the greater and smaller
seen. cattle :
25 Therefore make thee a 61 Therefore make thou a
Vara, long as a riding- circle of the length of a race-
ground, on every side of the ground to all four corners.
square, and thither bring 62 Thither bring thou the
the seeds of sheep and oxen, seed of the cattle, of the
of men, of dogs, of birds, beasts of burden, and of
and of red blazing fires. men, of dogs, of birds, and
of the red burning fires.

Can anything, we ask, be more clear and distinct than the
above description of the advent of the Glacial epoch in the
happy land over which Yima ruled, and where a year was equi-
valent to a single day ? There is no reference to Angra Majnyu
in this passage which describes in the form of a prophecy the
evils of glaciation, must in the same manner as a modern geo-
logist would describe the progress of the ice-cap during the
Glacial period. Ahura Mazda tells Yima that fierce and foul
frost will fall on the material world, and even the tops of the
highest mountains will be covered with or rather buried in snow
which will destroy all living beings whether on the tops of the
mountains or in the valleys below. The snow, it is said, would
fall aredv£ deep, which Spiegel translates by the phrase ' in great
abundance,' while Darmesteter, quoting from the commentary,
explains in a footnote that " even where it ( the snow ) is least,
it will be one Vitasti two fingers, that is, fourteen fingers deep. ''
A cubit of snow, at the lowest, covering the highest tops of the
mountains and the lowest depths of the valleys alike cannot
but destroy all animal life; and I do not think that the beginn-
ing of the Ice-age can be more vividly described. With this
express passage before us ascribing the ruin of the happy land
to the invasion of ice and winter, we should have no difficulty
whatsoever in rightly interpreting the meaning of the invasion
of Angra Mainyu described in the beginning of the first Fargard.
It is no longer a matter of inference that the original genia
climate of the Airyana Vaejo was rendered inclement by the
invasion of winter and snow, afterwards introduced into the