Page 751 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

CHALDEAN AND INDIAN VEDAS 97

intercalary winter month and of the sun-hero being affected with
a kind of skin disease or lost for a part of the year,* thus corro-
borating the theory of a common Arctic home for all. But the
subject howsoever interesting it may be, cannot be discussed
at the end of this paper. My object was simply to draw the atten-
tion of Vedic scholars to the importance of the comparative
study of Indian and Chaldean Vedas by pointing out some words
which, in my opinion, are common to both, and which fairly esta-
blish the case of mutual, and not merely one-sided, indebtedness
between the almost contemporaneous Aryan and Turanian people.
What effect it may have on the current theories about the inter-
relation between the two ancient cultures must be left for the
scholars to decide. When two civilizations are contemporaneous
it is natural to expect some borrowings from each other; but when
both are equally old it is difficult to see why, supposing the
borrowing is proved, one of them alone should be considered
to have borrowed from the other and that too only in later times.

• In Gilgames and !star myths. In ~- vii. 100. 6 Vi~hi:lu is said
to be affected with skin disease ( slzipiviihta ). Compare A1'ctic Hom~, pp.
330-32. See also Plunket's An::hnt Ca/m:iars, pp. 4 and q. The inter-
calary or the thirte~::nth month was called se-dzr, the dark month
<lf sowing.

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