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

276 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. and that Homer's earth was really a sphere and that the underworld was full of aerial waters. We have seen above, how some Vedic scholars have raised similar difficulties in the inter- pretation of the Vṛitra myth by supposing that the lower celestial hemisphere was unknown to the Vedic bards. This is probably a reflection of the Homeric controversy, but as pointed out by Dr. Warren,* these baseless assumptions are due mainly to a prejudice with which many scholars approach the question of the interpretation of ancient myths. It is assumed that the early man could not possibly have known anything about the world, beyond what the rudest savages know at pre- sent; and plain and explicit statements are sometimes put aside, distorted, or ignored by scholars, who, had they not been blinded by prejudice, would certainly have interpreted them in a different way. It is impossible to do justice to the subject in this place, and I would refer the reader for further details to Dr. Warren's instructive work on the subject. Dr. Warren also states that Euripides, like Homer, held the view that there was one fountain of all the world's water, and that the same concep- tion is expressed by Hesiod in his Theogony, where all rivers as sons, and all fountains and brooks as daughters, are traced back to Okeanos. Then we have the constant descending movement of all waters until they reach the world-surrounding Ocean-river at the equator, beyond which is the underworld, similar to the movements of aerial waters described in the Avesta. Aristotle, in his Meteors, is said also to have mentioned "a river in the air constantly flowing betwixt the heaven and the earth and made by the ascending and the descending vapours."† It is again pointed by Grill that the ancient Germans had a similar world-river, and the descending Ukko's stream and the ascend- ing Amma's stream in the Finnish mythology are similar- ly believed to be the traces of a like cosmic water-circulation.

• Paradise Found, p. 333f. † Paradise Found, p. 51, and 256, notes.