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

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 379 Aryan race went over to and settled in that country. Naturally enough this introduced greater confusion into the account of the Airyana Vaêjo instead of elucidating it, and scholars tried to get out of it by supposing that the whole account is either mythical, or is, at best, a confused reminiscence of the ancient Iranian home. The recent scientific discoveries have, however, proved the correctness of the Avestic traditions, and in the light thrown upon the subject by the new materials there is no course left but to reject the erroneous speculations of those Zend scholars that make the Airyana Vaêjo the eastern boundary of ancient Iran. But the most important part of the second Fargard is the warning conveyed by Ahura Mazda to Yima that fatal winters were going to fall on the land ruled over by the latter, and the description of glaciation by which the happy land was to be ruined. The warning is in the form of a prophecy, but any one who reads the two Fargards carefully can see that the passage really gives us a description of the Glacial epoch witnessed by the ancestors of the Iranians. We give below the translation of the passage both by Darmesteter and Spiegel. VENDIDAD, FARGARD II. Darmesteter. Spiegel. 22. And Ahura Mazda spake 46. Then spake Ahura Mazda unto Yima saying, “O fair to Yima : “ Yima the fair, the Yima, son of Vîvanghat! son of Vîvaṅhâo, Upon the material world the 47. Upon the corporeal world fatal winters are going to fall, will the evil of winter come : that shall bring the fierce, foul 48. Wherefore a vehement, frost ; upon the material world destroying frost will arise. the fatal winters are going to 49. Upon the corporeal world fall, that shall make snow- will the evil of winter come : flakes fall thick, even an 50. Wherefore snow will fall