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

458 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. the post-Glacial period is, even now, said to have com- menced some 80,000 years ago, if not earlier, we need not be much surprised at the Purâṇic estimate, especially when, as stated above, it is found to disclose a real tradition of 10,000 years assigned to a cycle of the four yugas, the first of which began with the new Kalpa, or, in the language of geology, with the present post-Glacial period. Another point wherein the two views may be said to differ is the beginning-less-ness (anâditva) of the Vedas. It is impossible to demonstrate histori- cally or scientifically that Vedic religion and worship is absolutely without a beginning. All that we can say is that its beginning is lost in geological antiquity, or that the Vedic religion is as old as the Aryan language or the Aryan man himself. If theologians are not satisfied with the support which this scienti- fic view accords to their theory about the eternity of the Vedas, the scientific and the theological views must stand, as they are, distinct from each other, for the two methods of investigation are essentially different. It is for this reason that I have stated the views in parallel columns for comparison without mixing them up. Whether the world was produced from the original WORD, or the Divine Logos, is a question which does not fall within the pale of historical investiga- tion; and any conclusions based upon it or similar other doctrines cannot, therefore, be treated in this place. We may, however, still assert that for all practical purposes the Vedic religion can be shown to be beginning-less even on strict scienti- fic grounds. A careful examination of the Ṛig-Vedic hymns will show that the Vedic Ṛishis were themselves conscious of the fact that the subject matter of the hymns sung by them was ancient or ante-diluvian in character, though the expressions used were their own productions. We have already referred before to the two sets of Vedic passages, the first expressly saying that the hymns were made, generated or fashioned like