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

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 365 cannot be placed in the far north, I think no scholar would have cared to put forward such guesses. There are express passages in the Avesta, which describe in unmistakable terms the climatic characteristics of the Airyana Vaêjo, and so far as I am aware, no valid reason has yet been assigned why we should treat this description as mythical and have recourse to guess-work for determining the position of the primeval home. Thus at the beginning of the first Fargard, we are told that the Airyana Vaêjo was the first good and happy creation of Ahura Mazda, but Angra Mainyu converted it into a land of ten months winter and two months summer, evidently meaning that at the time when the Fargard was composed it was an ice- bound land. The winter of ten months' duration, therefore, na- turally points to a position in the far north, at a great distance beyond the Jaxartes; and it would be unreasonable to ignore this description which is characteristic only of the Arctic re- gions, and, relying on doubtful guesses, hold that the Airyana Vaêjo was the easternmost boundary of the ancient Iran. As the passage, where the ten months' winter is described as the present principal climatic characteristic of the Airyana Vaêjo, is very important for our purpose, I give below the transla- tions of the same by Darmesteter, Spiegel and Haug: — VENDIDAD, FARGARD I. Darmesteter. | Spiegel. | Haug and Bunsen. 3. The first of the | 5. The first and best | 3. As the first best of good lands and coun- | of regions and places | regions and countries I, tries, which I, Ahura | have I created, I who | who am Ahura Mazda, Mazda, created, was the | am Ahura Mazda; | created Airyana Vaêjo Airyana Vaêjo, by the | 6. The Airyana Vaê- | of good capability; good river Dâitya. | jo of the good creation. | thereupon in opposition, Thereupon came An- | 7. Then Angra Mai- | to him Angra Mainyus, gra Mainyu, who is all | nyus, who is full of | the death-dealing, cre- death, and he counter- | death, created an oppo- | ated a mighty serpent created by his witch- | sition to the same; | and snow, the work of craft the serpent in | 8. A great Serpent | the Daêvas.