Page 564 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION 345
asterism ( 2500 B. C. ), the Vedic literature contains traces of
M#ga. or Orion being once the first of the Nak~hatras and the
hymns of the ~ig-Veda, or at least many of them, which are
undoubtedly older than the Taittirtya Sani.hita, contain refe-
rence to this period, that is, about 4500 B. C. approximately.
It is also pointed out that there are faint traces of the same
equinox being once in the constellation of Punarvasu, presid-
ed over by Aditi, which was possible in about 6,000 B. C. I have
in my later researches tried to push back this limit by searching
for the older zodiacal positions of the vernal equinox in the
Vedic literature, but I have not found any evidence of the same.
My attention was, however directed more and more to passages
containing traces of an Arctic calendar and an Arctic home, and
I have been gradually led to infer therefrom that at about 5000
or 6000 B. C., the Vedic Aryas had settled on the plains of
Central Asia, and that at the time the traditions about the existence
of the Arctic home and its destruction by snow and ice, as well
as about the Arctic origin of the Vedic deities, were difinitely
known to the bards of these races. In short, researches in Vedic
chronology and calendar do not warrant us in placing the advent
of the last Glacial epoch, which destroyed the ancient Aryan
home, at a time several thousands of years previous to the Orion
period; and from what has been stated in the first two chapters
of the book, it will be seen that this estimate well agrees with the
conclusions of American geologists, who, from an examination
of the erosion of valleys and similar other well-ascertained facts,
assign to the close of the Glacial epoch a date not older than about
8000 B. C. We might even go further and say that ancient Vedic
chronology and calendar furnish an independent corroboration of
the moderate view of the American geologists; and when two inde-
pendent lines of research unexpectedly lead us to the same result, we
may very well reject, at least in the present state of our knowledge
the extravagant speculations of Croll and his followers, and, for all
practical purposes, adopt the view that the last Glacial epoch closed
and the post-Glacial period commenced at about 8000 B. C. From
this to the Orion period is an interval of about 3000 years, and
it is not at all improbable that the traditions of the ancient home
should have been remembered and incorporated into hymns whose
origin can be clearly traced to that period. In short, the Vedic
traditions, far from being contradictory to the scientific evidence,