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

368 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. sufficiently advanced to establish the existence of a mild cli- mate round about the North pole in ancient times. It was probably this difficulty which stared Zend scholars in the face when they declined to place the Airyana Vaêjo in the far north, in spite of the plain description clearly indicating its northernmost position. Happily the recent discoveries in Geology and Archæology have not only removed this diffi- culty by establishing, on scientific grounds, the existence of a warm and genial climate near the North Pole in inter-glacial times, but have proved that the Polar regions were invaded, at least twice, by glaciation which destroyed their genial cli- mate. Thus it is now a settled scientific fact that the Arctic regions were once characterised by warm and short winters and genial and long summers, a sort of perpetual spring, and that this condition of things was totally upset or reversed by the advent of the Glacial period which made winters long and severe and summers short and cold. The description of the climatic changes introduced by Angra Mainyu into the Airyana Vaêjo is, therefore, just what a modern geologist would ascribe to the Glacial epoch ; and when the description is so remarkably and unexpectedly corroborated by the latest scientific researches, I fail to see on what ground we can lightly set it aside as mythical or imaginary. If some Zend scholars have done so in the past, it was because geological knowledge was not then sufficiently advanced to establish the probability of the description contained in the Avesta. But with new materials before us which go to confirm the Avestic description of the Airyana Vaêjo in every detail, we shall be acting unwisely if we decline to revise the conclusions of Zend scholars arrived at some years ago on insufficient materials. When we look at the question from this point of view, we have to place the site of the Airyana Vaêjo in the Arctic re- gions, where alone we can have a winter of ten months at the present day. We can escape from such a conclusion only by