Page 560 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTIJRE AND RELIGION 341
and character of the Vedas summarised--Differently supported by write~s
on the different schools of philosophy--Patanjali's and Vyasa's view that
the Vedas were lost in the last deluge and repromulgated i?Z sttl>stance,
if not infomt, at the beginning of the new age-The four periods into
which the post-Glacial era may be divided on astronomical grounds-
Compared with the characteristics of the four yugas given in the Aita-
reya BrahmaJ::la-Theological and historical views regarding the origin
etc. of the Vedas stated in parallel columns and compared-Vedic texts
showing that the sltl>jed mattar of the hymns is ancient though the !a?Z-
guage may be new, cited-Vedic deities and their exploits all said to be
ancient-Improbability of Dr. Muir's suggested reconciliation-Vedas,
or rather Ved1:: religion, shown to be inter-Glacial in substmzce though
post-Glacial in fomz-Concluding remarks.

We have now completed our investigation of the question
of the original home of the ancestors of the Vedic Aryans
from different stand-points of view. Our arguments, it will be
seen, are not based on the history of culture, or on facts dis-
closed by linguistic palreonotology. The evidence, cited in the
foregoing chapters, mainly consists of direct passages from
the Vedas and the Avesta, proving unmistakably that the poets
of the ~ig-Veda were acquainted with the climatic conditions
witnessible only in the Arctic regions and that the principal
Vedic deities, such as the revolving Dawn, the Waters captivat-
ed by Vritra, the Ashvins the rescuers of the affiicted gods and
Sftrya, Indra the deity of a hundred sacrifices, Vi~h~u the
vast-strider, Varu~a the lord of night and the ocean, the Aditya
brothers or the seven monthly sun-gods, Trita or the Third,
and others, are clothed with attributes which clearly betray
their Arctic origin. In other words, all the differential, mention
ed in the third chapter as characteristic of the Polar and circum-
Polar regions, are met with in the ~ig-Veda in such a way as
to leave no doubt regarding the conclusion to be drawn from
them. A day or a night of six months, and a long continuous
dawn of several days' duration with its revolving splendours,
not to mention the unusually long Arctic day and night or a
year of less than twelve months sunshine, were all known to
the Vedic bards, and have been described by them not mytho
logically or metaphorically but directly in plain and simple
words, which, though misinterpreted so long, can, in the light
thrown upon the question by recent scientific reserches, be now