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

PRIMITIVE ARYAN CULTURE AND RELIGION. 463 Vedas may, very well, be said to do the same. Thus from whatever side we approach the question, we are irresistibly led, by internal as well as external evidence, to the conclusion that the subject matter of the Vedic hymns is ancient and inter- glacial, and that it was incorporated into the Vedic hymns in post-Glacial times by Ṛiṣhis who inherited the same in the shape of continuous traditions from their inter-glacial fore- fathers. There are many other points in Vedic interpretation, or in Vedic and Purâṇic mythology, which are elucidated, or, we may even say, intelligently and rationally explained for the first time, by the theory of the Arctic home in inter- glacial times. For instance, we can now easily account for the disappointment of those Western scholars, who, when the Vedas became first known to them, expected to find therein the very beginnings of the Aryan civilisation or the out-pourings of the Aryan mind as it first became impressed with awe and wonder by the physical phenomena or the workings of natural elements and looked upon them as divine manifestations. Our theory now shows very clearly that though the Vedas are the oldest records of the Aryan race, yet the civilisation, or the characteristics and the worship of the deities mentioned therein did not originate with the Vedic bards, but was derived by them from their inter-glacial fore-fathers and preserved in the forms of hymns for the benefit of posterity; and if any one wants to trace the very beginnings of the Aryan civilisation he must go back beyond the last Glacial period, and see how the ancestors of the Aryan race lived and worked in their primeval Polar home. Unfortunately we have very few materials for ascertaining the degree of this civilisation. But we think we have shewn that there are grounds to hold that the inter-glacial Aryan civilisation and culture must have been of a higher type than what it is usually supposed to be;