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

464 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. and that there is no reason why the primitive Aryans should not be placed on an equal footing with the pre-historic inhabitants of Egypt in point of culture and civilisation. The vitality and superiority of the Aryan races, as disclosed by their con- quest, by extermination or assimilation, of the non-Aryan races with whom they came in contact in their migrations in search of new lands from the North Pole to the Equator, if not to the farther south, is intelligible only on the assumption of a high degree of civilisation in their original Arctic home; and when the Vedas come to be further examined in the light of the Arctic theory, we may certainly expect to discover therein many other facts, which will further support this view, but which are still hidden from us owing to our imperfect know- ledge of the physical and social surroundings amidst which the ancestors of the Vedic Ṛiṣhis lived near the North Pole in times before the Glacial epoch. The exploration of the Arctic regions which is being carried on at present, may also help us hereafter in our investigation of the beginnings of the Aryan civilisation. But all these things must be left to be done by future investigators when the theory of the Arctic home of the Aryans comes to be generally recognised as a scientific fact. Our object at present is to show that there is enough evidence in the Veda and the Avesta to establish the existence of an Arctic home in inter-Glacial times; and the reader, who has fol- lowed us in our arguments, set forth in the preceding pages, will at once perceive that the theory we have endeavoured to prove, is based on a solid foundation of express texts and passages traditionally preserved in the two oldest books of the Aryan race, and that it is amply forti- fied by independent corroboration received from the latest results of the correlative sciences, like Geology, Archæology Linguistic Palæology, Comparative Mythology and Astronomy.