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

372 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. period as Rapitvîn goes under-ground during winter and comes up from below the ground in summer. The seven months of summer are similarly described in the same book as extending "from the auspicious day Aûharmazd (first) of the month Farvar- dîn to the auspicious day Anîrân (last) of the month Mitrô," (XXV, 7). It seems from this account that the tradition of seven months summer and five months winter in the Airyana Vaêjo was an old tradition, and the Bundahish, in recording it, gives us the climatic conditions in the ancient home and not, as supposed by some, those which the writer saw in his own day. For in the twentieth paragraph of the same chapter twelve months and four seasons are enumerated, and the season of winter is there said to comprise only the last three months of the year, viz., Dîn, Vohûman and Spendârmad. I have shown elsewhere that the order of months in the ancient Iranian calendar was different from the one given in the Bundahish. But whatever the order may be, the fact of the prevalence of seven months sum- mer and five months winter in the Airyana Vaêjo seems to have been traditionally preserved in these passages; and the old Zend commentators on the Vendîdad appear to have incorporated it into the original text, by way of, what may be called, a marginal note, in their anxiety to preserve an old tradition. We have thus two different statements regarding the climatic con- ditions of the Airyana Vaêjo before it was invaded by Angra Mainyu: one, that there were ten months of summer and two of winter, the reverse of the conditions introduced by Angra Mainyu; and the other, traditionally preserved by the commentators, viz., that there were seven summer months and five winter months therein. It is supposed that the two statements are contradictory; and contradictory they undoubtedly are so long as we do not possess the true key to their interpretation. They are inconsistent, if we make the Airyana Vaêjo the easternmost boundary of the ancient Iran;