Page 558 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

- COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY 339
continuous darkness, or thirty days' continuous dawn. The
question whether the home of other nations, beside the Aryan,
can be traced to the North Pole, has been ably discussed by Dr.
Warren in his Paradise Found, or the Cradle of the Human
Race at the North Pole. It is important question from an anth-
ropological point of view; but its very comprehensiveness
precludes us from collecting evidence from the traditional li~era­
tures of the different human races living on the surface of this
earth. It is true that we sometimes derive help from the discu-
ssion of the broader questions at first; but for all practical
purposes it is always desirable to split up the inquiry into
different sections, and when each section has been thoroughly
investigated to combine the results of the different investigators
and see what conclusions are common to all. Our inquiry of the
original Aryan home is, therefore, not only not inconsistent
with the general theory about the cradle of the human race at
the North Pole, but a necessary complement to it; and it
matters little whether it is undertaken as an independent in-
quiry as we have done, or as a part of the general investigation.
Anyhow ours is a limited task, namely, to prove that the
original home of the Aryan people was situated in the Arctic
regions before the last Glacial epoch and that the oldest ances-
tors of the Aryan race had to abandon it owing to its destruc-
tion by ice and snow of the Glacial period. The Vedic and the
A vestic passages, quoted in the previous chapters, directly
point to such a home in primeval times, and we now see that
the testimony of scholors, like Prof. Rhys, who have indepen-
dently examined the Celtic, Teutonic and other mythologies of
the European branches of the Aryan race, fully bears out the
conclusion we have deduced from the Indo-Iranian traditions.
We have also seen that our view is supported by the latest
scientific researches, and is not inconsistent with the results of
comparative philology. We may, therefore, take it as establish-
ed that the original home of the Aryan people was in the far
north, in regions round about the North Pole, and that we have
correctly interpreted the Vedic and the A vestic traditions which
had long remained mis-interpreted or mis-understood.