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

434 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. Vedic hymns. And what applies to the dawn can be predic- ated as well of other deities and myths, e. g., of Indra and Vṛitra or the captive Waters, of Viṣhṇu hibernating for four months in a year, or of Trita or the Third going down in a well, or of the Ashvins rescuing or saving the gods from the temporary affliction to which they were again and again sub- jected. These very names may not be found in the Celtic or the Teutonic mythology, but an examination of the latter has been found to disclose the same polar characteristics which are possessed by Vedic deities or myths; and so long as this fundamental coincidence exists between the two, it is unreason- able to contend that the mythologies of the different branches of the Aryan race had no common origin, or that the resem- blances between the names of the deities are more linguistic than mythological. The destruction of the ancient Aryan home by glaciation and deluge introduces a new factor in the history of the Aryan civilisation; and any short-comings or defects in the civilisation of the Aryan races, that are found to have inhabited the northern parts of Europe in the beginning of the Neolithic age, as distinguished from the civilisation of the Asiatic Aryan races, must now be accounted for as the result of a natural relapse into barbarism after the great catastrophe. It is true that ordinarily we cannot conceive a race that has once launched on a career of progress and civili- sation suddenly retrograding or relapsing into barbarism. But the same rule cannot be applied to the case of the continu- ation of the ante-diluvian civilisation into post-diluvian times. In the first place very few people could have survived a cataclysm of such magnitude as the deluge of snow and ice; and those that survived could hardly be expected to have carried with them all the civilisation of the original home, and introduced it intact in their new settlements, under adverse circumstances, amongst the non-Aryan tribes in the north of Europe or on the plains of Central Asia. We must also bear