वेदों की प्राचीनता एवं काल-निर्णय / ओरायन (लोकमान्य बाल गंगाधर तिलक - खगोलीय वैदिक शोध)

PREFACE. vii climate inclement and necessitated a migration southward. These are plain and simple statements, and when we put them side by side with what we know of the Glacial and the Post-glacial epoch from the latest geological researches, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the primitive Aryan home was both Arctic and inter-glacial. I have often asked myself, why the real bearing of these plain and simple statements should have so long remain- ed undiscovered; and let me assure the reader that it was not un- til I was convinced that the discovery was due solely to the re- cent progress in our knowledge regarding the primitive history of the human race and the planet it inhabits, that I ventured to publish the present volume. Some Zend scholars have narrow- ly missed the truth, simply because 40 or 50 years ago they were unable to understand how a happy home could be located in the ice-bound regions near the North Pole. The progress of geological science in the latter half of the last century has, how- ever, now solved the difficulty by proving that the climate at the Pole during the interglacial times was mild, and consequent- ly not unsuited for human habitation. There is, therefore, nothing extraordinary, if it be left to us to find out the real import of these passages in the Veda and Avesta. It is true that if the theory of an Arctic and inter-glacial primitive Aryan home is proved, many a chapter in Vedic exegetics, comparative mythology, or primitive Aryan history, will have to be re- vised or re-written, and in the last chapter of this book I have myself discussed a few important points which will be affect- ed by the new theory. But as remarked by me at the end of the book, considerations like these, howsoever useful they may be in inducing caution in our investigations, ought not to deter us from accepting the results of an inquiry conducted on strictly scientific lines. It is very hard, I know, to give up theories upon which one has worked all his life. But, as Mr. Andrew Lang has put it, it should always be borne in mind