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

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 409

speaking Aryan languages. Nor can one forget that all the great states of modern Europe, except that of the sick man, trace their history back to the conquest of the Norsemen who set out from the Scandinavian land, which Jordanis proudly calls officina gentium and vagina nationum. But I doubt whether the teachings of evolution may not force us to trace them still further towards the North : in any case, the mythological indications to which your attention has been called, point, if I am not mistaken, to some spot within the Arctic Circle, such, for example, as the region where Norse legend placed the Land of Immortality, somewhere in the north of Finland and the neighbourhood of the White Sea. There would, perhaps, be no difficulty in the way of supposing them to have thence in due time descended into Scandinavia, settling, among other places, at Upsala, which has all the appearance of being a most ancient site, lying as it does on a plain dotted with innumerable burial mounds of unknown antiquity. This, you will bear in mind, has to do only with the origin of the early Aryans, and not with that of the human race generally; but it would be no fatal objection to the view here suggested, if it should be urged that the mythology of nations beside the Aryans, such as that of the Paphlagonians, in case of their not being Aryan, point like- wise to the north; for it is not contended that the Aryans may be the only people of northern origin. Indeed, I may add that a theory was, not long ago, propounded by a distinguished French savant, to the effect that the entire human race originated on the shores of the Polar Sea at a time when the rest of the nor- thern hemisphere was too hot to be inhabited by man. M. de Saporta, for that is the learned writer's name, ex- plains himself in clear and forcible terms; but how far his hypothesis may satisfy the other students of this- fascinating subject I cannot say. It may, however, be ob- served in passing that it need not disconcert even the most