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

38 THH ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. (9) There is enough evidence to show that the Arctic regions, both in Asia and Europe, were characterised in the Inter- Glacial period by cool summers and warm winters,—a sort of, what Herschel calls, a perpetual spring; and that places like Spitzbergen, where the sun goes below the horizon from November till March, were once the seat of luxuriant vegetation, that grows, at present, only in the temperate or the tropical climate. (10) It was the coming on of the Glacial age that destroyed this genial climate, and rendered the regions unsuited for the habitation of tropical plants and animals. (11) There are various estimates regarding the duration of the Glacial period, but in the present state of our knowledge it is safer to rely on geology than on astronomy in this respect, though as regards the causes of the Ice Age the astronomical explanation appears to be more probable. (12) According to Prof. Geikie there is evidence to hold that there were, in all, five Glacial and four Inter-Glacial epochs, and that even the beginning of the Post-Glacial period was mark- ed by two successions of cold and genial climate, at least in the North-West of Europe. (13) Several eminent scientific men have already advanced the theory that the cradle of the human race must be sought for in the Arctic regions and that the plant and animal life also originated in the same place. It will thus be seen that if the Vedic evidence points to an Arctic home, where the ancestors of the Vedic Rishis lived in ancient times, there is at any rate nothing in the latest scientific discoveries which would warrant us in considering this result as a priori improbable. On the contrary there is much in these re- searches that suggests such a hypothesis, and as a matter of fact, several scientific men have now been led to think that we must look for the cradle of the human race in the Arctic regions.