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

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 375 can be traced back to the Indo-European period; and since its double character can be explained only by placing the ori- ginal home in the circumpolar regions, we are inevitably led to the conclusion that the Airyana Vaêjo must also be placed in the same region. The Avestic account is by itself plain and intelligible, and the apparent inconsistencies would have been explained in a natural way long ago, if Zend scholars had not created unnecessary difficulties by transferring the site of this Paradise to the east of the ancient Iran. Under these circumstances it is needless to say which of the two theo- ries regarding the position of the Airyana Vaêjo is correct; for no one would accept a hypothesis which only enhances the confusion, in preference to one which explains everything in a natural and satisfactory manner, We have so far discussed the passage in the first Fargard which describes the climate of the Airyana Vaêjo. The passage, even when taken by itself, is quite intelligible on the Arctic theory; but in ascertaining the original climate of the Airyana Vaêjo we supposed that it was the reverse of the one introduced by the invasion of Angra Mainyu. The second Fargard of the Vendidad, which is similar in character to the first, contains, however, a passage, which does away with the necessity of such assumption, by giving us a graphic description of the actual advent of ice and snow which ruined the ancient Iranian Paradise. This Far- gard is really a supplement to the first and contains a more detailed account of the Airyana Vaêjo and a description of the paradisiacal life enjoyed there before Angra Mainyu afflicted it with the plague of winter and snow. This is evident from the fact that the coming of the severe winter is foretold in this Fargard and Yima is warned to prepare against it; while in the first Fargard the happy land is described as ac- tually ruined by Angra Mainyu's invasion. Darmesteter divides this Fargard into two parts, the first comprising the

376 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. first twenty (or according to Spiegel forty-one) paragraphs, and the second the remaining portion of the Fargard. In the first part Ahura Mazda is said to have asked king Yima the ruler of the Airyāna Vaêjo, who is called Sruto Airyênê vaêjahê, 'famous in Airyāna Vaêjo', to receive the law from Mazda ; but Yima refused to become the bearer of the law and he was, therefore, directed by Ahura Mazda to keep his people happy and make them increase. Yima is accordingly represented as making his men thrive and increase by keeping away death and disease from them, and by thrice enlarging the boundaries of the country which had become too narrow for its inhabitants. Whether this fact represents a gradual expansion of the oldest Aryan settlements in the Arctic home we need not stop to inquire. The second part of the Fargard opens with a meeting of the celestial gods called by Ahura Mazda, and "the fair Yima, the good shepherd of high re- nown in the Airyāna Vaêjo," is said to have attended this meeting with all his excellent mortals. It was at this meet- ing that Yima was distinctly warned by Ahura Mazda that fatal winters were going to fall on the happy land and de- stroy everything therein. To provide against this calamity the Holy One advised Yima to make a Vara or enclosure, and remove there the seeds of every kind of animals and plants for preservation. Yima made the Vara accordingly, and the Far- gard informs us that in this Vara the sun, the moon and the stars “rose but once a year,” and that “a year seemed only as a day” to the inhabitants thereof. The Fargard then closes with the description of the happy life led by the inhabitants of this Vara of which Zarathushtra and his son Urvatadnara are said to be the masters or overseers. Yima's Vara here described is something like Noah's ark. But there is this difference between the two that while the Biblical deluge is of water and rain, the Avestic deluge is of snow and ice; and the latter not only does not conflict

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 377 with geological evidence but is, on the contrary, fully and unexpectedly confirmed by it. Secondly, the description that "a year seemed only as a day" to the inhabitants of this Vara, and that the sun and stars "rose only once a year therein," serves, in an unmistakable manner, to fix the geo- graphical position of this Vara in the region round about the North Pole; for nowhere on the surface of the earth can we have a year-long day-and-night except at the Pole. Once the position of Yima's Vara is thus fixed the posi- tion of the Airyana Vaêjo is at once determined; for Yima's Vara, as stated in the Mainyô-i-khard, must obviously be located in the Airyana Vaêjo. Here is, therefore, another argument for locating the Airyana Vaêjo in the extreme north and not to the west of the ancient Iran, as Spiegel, Darme- steter and others have done. For whether Yima's Vara be real or mythical, we cannot suppose that the knowledge of a year-long day and of the single rising of the sun during the whole year was acquired simply by a stretch of imagination, and that it is a mere accident that it tallies so well with the description of the Polar day and night. The authors of the Fargard may not have themselves witnessed these phenomena, but there can be no doubt that they knew these facts by tradition; and if so, we must suppose that their remote ancestors must have acquired this knowledge by personal experience in their home near the North Pole. Those that locate the Airyana Vaêjo in the extreme east of the Ira- nian highland try to account for ten months winter therein by assuming that a tradition of a decrease in the earth's temperature was still in the mind of the author of this Fargard, or that the altitude of the table-land, where the Oxus and the Jaxartes take their rise, was far higher in ancient times than at present, thereby producing a cold climate. Both these explanations are however artificial and unsatisfactory. It is true that a high altitude produces a-

378 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. cold climate; but in the present instance the climate of the Airyana Vaêjo was mild and genial before the invasion of Angra Mainyu, and we must, therefore, suppose that the Iranian table-land was not elevated at first, until Angra Mainyu upheaved it and produced a cold climate. But the present altitude of the plateau is not so great as to produce a winter of ten months, and this requires us again to assume the submergence of this land after the invasion of Angra Mainyu. Unfortunately there is no geological evidence forth-coming to support the upheaval and submergence of this land in the order mentioned above. But even if such evidence were forthcoming, the explanation would still fail to account why the inhabitants of Yima's Vara in the Airyana Vaêjo regarded a year as a single day, a description, which is true only at the North Pole. All attempts to locate the primitive Airyana Vaêjo in a region other than the circumpolar country must, therefore, be abandoned. The names of mythical rivers and countries may have been transferred in later times to real terrestrial rivers and provinces; but if we were to settle the position of the primitive rivers or countries by a reference to these new names, we can as well locate the Airyana Vaêjo between the Himâlay and the Vindhya mountains in India, for in later Sanskrit literature the land lying between these two mountains is called the Âryâvarta or the abode of the Aryans. The mistake committed by Darmesteter and Spiegel is of the same kind. Instead of determining the position of the Airyana Vaêjo from the fact that a winter of ten months is said to have been introduced therein by Angra Mainyu, and that a year seemed only as a day to the inhabitants thereof, they have tried to guess it from the uncertain data furnished by the names of rivers in Iran, though they were aware of the fact that these names were origi- nally the names of mythical rivers and were attached to the real rivers in Iran only in later times, when a branch of the

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 379 Aryan race went over to and settled in that country. Naturally enough this introduced greater confusion into the account of the Airyana Vaêjo instead of elucidating it, and scholars tried to get out of it by supposing that the whole account is either mythical, or is, at best, a confused reminiscence of the ancient Iranian home. The recent scientific discoveries have, however, proved the correctness of the Avestic traditions, and in the light thrown upon the subject by the new materials there is no course left but to reject the erroneous speculations of those Zend scholars that make the Airyana Vaêjo the eastern boundary of ancient Iran. But the most important part of the second Fargard is the warning conveyed by Ahura Mazda to Yima that fatal winters were going to fall on the land ruled over by the latter, and the description of glaciation by which the happy land was to be ruined. The warning is in the form of a prophecy, but any one who reads the two Fargards carefully can see that the passage really gives us a description of the Glacial epoch witnessed by the ancestors of the Iranians. We give below the translation of the passage both by Darmesteter and Spiegel. VENDIDAD, FARGARD II. Darmesteter. Spiegel. 22. And Ahura Mazda spake 46. Then spake Ahura Mazda unto Yima saying, “O fair to Yima : “ Yima the fair, the Yima, son of Vîvanghat! son of Vîvaṅhâo, Upon the material world the 47. Upon the corporeal world fatal winters are going to fall, will the evil of winter come : that shall bring the fierce, foul 48. Wherefore a vehement, frost ; upon the material world destroying frost will arise. the fatal winters are going to 49. Upon the corporeal world fall, that shall make snow- will the evil of winter come : flakes fall thick, even an 50. Wherefore snow will fall

380 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. Darmesteter. Spiegel. aredvî deep on the 'high- in great abundance, est tops of mountains. 51. On the summits of the mountains, on the breadth of the heights. 23. And all the three sorts 52. From three (places), O of beasts shall perish, those Yima, let the cattle depart, that live in the wilderness, 53. If they are in the most and those that live on the fearful places, tops of the mountains, and 54. If they are on the tops of those that live in the bosom the mountains, of the dale, under the shelter 55. If they are in the depths of stables. of the valleys, 56. To secure dwelling places. 24. Before that winter, those 57. Before this winter the fields would bear plenty of country produced pasture; grass for cattle: now with 58. Before flow waters, behind floods that stream, with snows is the melting of the snow. that melt, it will seem a hap- 59. Clouds, O Yima, will come py land in the world, the land over the inhabitated regions, wherein footprints even of 60. Which now behold the sheep may still be seen. feet of the greater and smaller cattle: 25. Therefore make thee a 61. Therefore make thou a Vara, long as a riding-ground, circle of the length of a race- on every side of the square, ground to all four corners. and thither bring the seeds 62. Thither bring thou the of sheep and oxen, of men, seed of the cattle, of the beasts of dogs, of birds, and of red of burden, and of men, of dogs, blazing fires. of birds, and of the red burn- ing fires. Can anything, we ask, be more clear and distinct than the above description of the advent of the Glacial epoch in the happy land over which Yima ruled, and where a year was

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 381 equivalent to a single day ? There is no reference to Angra Mainyu in this passage which describes in the form of a pro- phecy the evils of glaciation, much in the same manner as a modern geologist would describe the progress of the ice-cap during the Glacial period. Ahura Mazda tells Yima that fierce and foul frost will fall on the material world, and even the tops of the highest mountains will be covered with or rather buried in snow which will destroy all living beings whether on the tops of the mountains or in the valleys below. The snow, it is said, would fall aredvi deep, which Spiegel translates by the phrase 'in great abundance,' while Darmesteter, quoting from the com- mentary, explains in a footnote that "even where it (the snow) is least, it will be one Vitasti two fingers, that is, fourteen fingers deep." A cubit of snow, at the lowest, covering the highest tops of the mountains and the lowest depths of the valleys alike . cannot but destroy all animal life ; and I do not think that the beginning of the Ice-age can be more vividly described. With this express passage before us ascribing the ruin of the happy land to the invasion of ice and winter, we should have no difficulty whatsoever in rightly interpreting the meaning of the invasion of Angra Mainyu described in the beginning of the first Fargard. It is no longer a matter of inference that the original genial climate of the Airyana Vaêjo was rendered inclement by the invasion of winter and snow, afterwards introduced into the land. The above passage says so in distinct terms, and the description is so graphic that we cannot regard it as mythical or imaginary. Add to it the fact that the recent geological discoveries have established the existence of at least two Glacial periods, the last of which closed and the post-Glacial period commenced, accord- ing to American geologists, not later than about 8000 B. C. When the Avestic traditions regarding the destruction of the primeval Arctic home by glaciation is thus found to be in com- plete harmony with the latest geological researches, there is no

382 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. reason, except prejudice, why we should not regard the Avestic account as a correct reminiscence of an old real historical fact. The author of the Fargards in question cannot be supposed to have given us by imagination such a graphic account of a phenomenon, which is brought to light or discovered by the scientists only during the last forty or fifty years. Dar- mesteter in his translation of the Fargards observes in a foot- note that the account of glaciation is the result of a mythical misunderstanding by which winter was thought to be the counter-creation of Irân Vêj. This passed off very well twenty years ago; but the phenomenon of glaciation in the Ice-age is now better understood, and we cannot accept guesses and conjectures of scholars regarding the meaning of a passage in the Avesta which describes the glaciation of the Iranian paradise. It only proves how the ancient records, howsoever express and distinct they may be, are apt to be misunderstood and misinterpreted owing to our imperfect knowledge of the climatic or other conditions or surroundings amongst which the ancestors of our race lived in remote ages. But for such a misunderstanding, it was not difficult to perceive that the Airyana Vaêjo, or the original home of the Aryan race, was situated near the North Pole, and that the ancestors of our race abandoned it not out of "irresistible impulse," or "over- crowding," but simply because it was ruined by the invasion of snow and ice brought on by the Glacial epoch. In short, the Avestic tradition, as recorded in this Fargard, is the oldest documentary evidence of the great climatic convulsion, which took place several hundreds of years ago, and the scientific evidence of which was discovered only during the last forty or fifty years. It is, therefore, a matter of regret that the im- portance of this tradition should have been so long misunder- stood or overlooked. It will be seen from the foregoing discussion that the tra- ditional evidence preserved in the first two Fargards of the

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 383 Vendidad is especially important for our purpose. The Dawn- hymns in the Ṛig-Veda supply us with the evidence of a long continuous dawn of thirty days in the ancient home, and there are passages in the Vedas which speak of a long continuous night of six months or of shorter duration, and a year of seven or ten months. It can also be shown that several Vedic myths and deities bear an unmistakable stamp of their Arctic origin. But, as stated before, in the whole Vedic literature there is no passage which will enable us to determine the time when the Polar regions were inhabited, or to ascertain the reason why they were abandoned. For that purpose we drew upon geology which has recently established the fact that the cli- mate of the circumpolar regions, which is now so cold as to render the land unsuited for human habitation, was mild and genial before the last Glacial period. It followed, therefore, that if the Vedic evidence pointed to an Arctic home, the fore- fathers of the Aryan race must have lived therein not after but before the last Glacial epoch. But the traditions preserved in the Avesta dispense with the necessity of relying on geology for this purpose. We have now direct traditional evidence to shew (1) that the Airyana Vaêjo had originally a good cli- mate, but Angra Mainyu converted it into a winter of ten and a summer of two months. (2) that the Airyana Vaêjo was so situated that the inhabitants of Yima's Vara therein regarded the year only as a day, and saw the sun rise only once a year, and (3) that the happy land was rendered uninhabitable by the advent of a Glacial epoch which destroyed all life there- in. It is true, that but for recent geological discoveries these statements, howsoever plain and distinct, would have remained unintelligible, or regarded as improbable by scholars, who would have always tried, as Darmesteter has already done, to put some artificial or unnatural construction upon these pas- sages to render the same comprehensible to them. We cannot, therefore, deny that we are indebted to these scientific

384 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. discoveries for enabling us to determine the true meaning of the Avestic traditions, and to clear the mist of misinterpretation that has gathered round them. But nevertheless, the value of this traditional testimony is not thereby impaired in any way. It is the oldest traditional record, preserved by human memory, of the great catastrophe which overtook the northern portion of Europe and Asia in ancient times, and obliged the Aryan inhabitants of the Arctic regions to migrate southwards. It has been preserved during thousands of years simply as an ancient record or tradition, though its meaning was not intel- ligible, until at last we now see that the accuracy of the account is fully and unexpectedly borne out by the latest scientific researches. There are very few instances where science has proved the accuracy of the ancient semi-religious records in this way. When the position of the Airyana Vaêjo and the cause of its ruin are thus definitely settled both by traditional and scientific evidence, it naturally follows that the sixteen lands mentioned in the first Fargard of the Vendidad must be taken to mark the gradual diffusion of the Iranians from their ancient home to the country of the Rasâ and the seven rivers; or, in other words, the Fargard must be regarded as historical and not geographical as maintained by Spiegel and Darme- steter. It is true that the first Fargard does not say anything about migration. But when the site of the Airyana Vaêjo is placed in the extreme north, and when we are told in the second Fargard that the land was ruined by ice, no specific mention of migration is needed, and the fact that the sixteen lands are mentioned in a certain specific order is naturally understood, in that case, to mark the successive stages of migration of the Indo-Iranian people. It is not contended that every word in these two Fargards may be historically correct. No one would expect such a rigid accuracy in the reminiscences of old times traditionally preserved. It is also true that the Airyana Vaêjo has grown into a sort of

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 385 mythical land in the later Pârsî literature, somewhat like Mount Meru, the seat of Hindu gods, in the Purâṇas. But for all that we cannot deny that in the account of the Airyana Vaêjo in the first two Fargards of the Vendidad we have a real historical reminiscence of the Arctic cradle of the Iranian or the Aryan races, and that the Fargard gives us a description of the countries through which the Indo-Iranians had to pass before they settled in the Hapta Heṇdu or on the floods of Rangha, at the beginning of the post-Glacial period. This story of the destruction of the original home by ice may well be compared with the story of deluge found in the Indian literature. The oldest of these accounts is contained in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa (I, 8, 1, 1-10), and the same story is found, with modifications and additions, in the Mahâbhârata (Vana-Parvan, Ch. 187), and in the Mâtsya, the Bhâgavata and other Purâṇas. All these passages are collected and discussed by Muir in the first Volume of his Original Sanskrit Texts (3rd Ed. pp. 181-220); and it is unnecessary to examine them at any length in this place. We are concerned only with the Vedic version of the story and this appears in the above mentioned passage in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa. A fish is there represented as having fallen into the hands of Manu along with water brought for washing in the morning. The fish asked Manu to save him, and in return promised to rescue Manu from a flood (aughaḥ) that would sweep away (nirvodhâ) all creatures. The Brâhmaṇa does not say when and where this conversation took place, nor describes the nature of the calamity more fully than that it was a flood. Manu preserved the fish first in a jar, then in a trench, and lastly, by carrying him to the ocean. The fish then warns Manu that in such and such a year (not definitely specified) the destructive flood will come, and advises him to construct a ship (nâvam) and embark in it when the flood would arise. Manu constructs the ship accordingly, and when 25

386 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. the flood rises, embarks in it, fastens its cable (pásham) to the fish's horn and passes over (ati-dudrâva) to "this northern mountain" (etam uttaram girim) by which phrase the com- mentator understands the Himavat or the Himâlaya mountain to the north of India. The fish then asks Manu to fasten the ship to a tree, so that it may gradually descend, without going astray, along with the subsiding water; and Manu acts accordingly. We are told that it is on this account that the northern mountain has received the appellation of Manor-ava- sarpaṇam or 'Manu's descent.' Manu was the only person thus saved from the deluge; and desirous of offspring he sacrificed with the Pâka-yajña, and threw butter, milk, and curds as oblations into the waters. Thence in a year rose a woman named Iḍâ, and Manu living with her begot the off- spring, which is called Manu's off-spring (prajâtiḥ). This is the substance of the story as found in the Shatapatha Brâh- maṇa, and the same incident is apparently referred to in the Atharva Veda Saṁhitâ (XIX, 39, 7-8), which says that the kushṭha plant was born on the very spot on the summit of the Himavat, the seat of the 'Gliding down of the ship' (nâva-prabhraṁshanam), the golden ship with golden tackle that moved through the heaven. In the Mahâbhârata ver- sion of the legend this peak of the Himâlaya is said to be known as Nau-bandhanam, but no further details regarding the place or time are given. The Mâtsya Purâṇa, however, men- tions Malaya, or the Malabar, as the scene of Manu's austerity, and in the Bhâgavata, Satyavrata, king of Draviḍa, is said to be the hero of the story. Muir has compared these accounts, and pointed out the differences between the oldest and the later versions of the story, showing how it was amplified or enlarged in later times. We are, however, concerned with the oldest account; and so far as it goes, it gives us no clue for determining the place whence Manu embarked in the ship. The deluge again appears to be one of water; and not of ice

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 387

and snow as described in the Avesta. Nevertheless it seems that the Indian story of deluge refers to the same catastrophe as is described in the Avesta and not to any local deluge of water or rain. For though the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa men- tions only a flood (aughaḥ), the word prâleya, which Pâṇinî (VII, 3, 2) derives from pralaya (a deluge), signifies 'snow,' 'frost,' or 'ice' in the later Sanskrit literature. This indi- cates that the connection of ice with the deluge was not ori- ginally unknown to the Indians, though in later times it seems to have been entirely overlooked. Geology informs us that every Glacial epoch is characterised by extensive inundation of the land with waters brought down by great rivers flowing from the glaciated districts, and carrying an amount of sand or mud along with them. The word aughaḥ, or a flood, in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa may, therefore, be taken to refer to such sweeping floods flowing from the glaciated districts, and we may suppose Manu to have been carried along one of these in a ship guided by the fish to the sides of the Himâlaya mountain. In short, it is not necessary to hold that the ac- count in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa refers to the water-deluge pure and simple, whatever the later Purâṇas may say; and if so, we can regard the Brahmanic account of deluge as but a different version of the Avestic deluge of ice. It was once suggested that the idea of deluge may have been introduced into India from an exclusively Semitic source; but this theory is long ago abandoned by scholars, as the story of the deluge is found in such an ancient book as the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa, the date of which has now been ascertained to be not later than 2500 B. C., from the fact that it expressly as- signs to the Kṛittikâs, or the Pleiades, a position in the due east. It is evident, therefore, that the story of the deluge is Aryan in origin, and in that case the Avestic and the Vedic account of the deluge must be traced to the same source. It may also be remarked that Yima, who is said to have

388 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. constructed the Vara in the Avesta, is there described as the son of Vîvanghat ; and Manu, the hero in the Indian story, though he receives no epithet in the account of the deluge in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa, is very often described in the Vedic literature as the son of Vivasvat (Vaivasvata), the Iranian Vîvanghat, (Shat. Brâh. XIII, 4, 3, 3; Ṛig. VIII, 52, 1). Yama is also expressly called Vaivasvata in the Ṛig- Veda (X, 14, 1). This shows that in spite of the fact that Yima is the hero in one account and Manu in the other, and that one is said to be the deluge of ice and the other of water, we may regard the two accounts as referring to the same geological phenomenon.* The Avestic account is, however, more specific than that in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa, and as it is

• The story of the deluge is found also in other Aryan mythologies. The following extract from Grote's History of Greece (Vol. I, Chap. 5) gives the Greek version of the story and some of the incidents therein bear striking resemblance to the incidents in the story of Manu :— “ The enormous iniquity with which earth was contaminated—as Apollodôrus says, by the then existing brazen race, or as others say, by the fifty monstrous sons of Lykaôn--provoked Zeus to send a general deluge. An unremitting and terrible rain laid the whole of Greece under water, except the highest mountain-tops, whereon a few stragglers found refuge. Deukaliôn was saved in a chest or ark, which he had been forewarned by his father Promêtheus to construct. After floating for nine days on the water, he at length landed on the summit of Mount Parnasses. Zeus hav- ing sent Hermês to him, promising to grant whatever he asked, he prayed that men and companions might be sent to him in his solitude; accordingly Zeus directed both him and Pyrrha (his wife) to cast stones over their heads : those cast by Pyrrha became women, those by Deukaliôn men. And thus the “stony race of men” (if we may be allowed to translate an etymology which the Greek language presents exactly, and which has not been disdained by Hesiod, by Pindar, by Epicharmas, and by Virgil) came to tenant the soil of Greece. Deukaliôn on landing from the ark sa- crificed a grateful offering to Zeus Phyxios, or the God of escape; he also erected altars in Thessaly to the twelve great gods of Olympus.” · In commenting upon the above story Grote remarks that the reality of this deluge was firmly believed throughout the historical ages of Greece, and even Aristotle, in his meteorological work, admits and reasons upon it as an unquestionable fact.

THE AVESTIC EVIDENCE. 389 corroborated, almost in every detail, by the scientific evidence regarding the advent of the Glacial epoch in early times, it follows that the tradition preserved in the two Fargards of the Vendidad is older than that in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa. Dr. Haug has arrived at a similar conclusion on linguistic grounds. Speaking about the passage in the Vendidad he says "the original document is certainly of high antiquity and is undoubtedly one of the oldest of the pieces which com- pose the existing Vendidad." The mention of Hapta Hendu, a name not preserved even in the later Vedic literature, is said also to point to the same conclusion. We may here refer to certain passages cited by Muir in his Original Sanskrit Texts (3rd Ed. Vol. II. pp 322-329) to show that the reminiscences of the northern home have been preserved in the Indian literature. He first refers to the ex- pression shatam himâḥ, or 'a hundred winters,' occurring in se- veral places in the Ṛig-Veda (I, 64, 14; II, 33, 2 ; V, 54, 15 ; VI, 48, 8), and remarks that though the expression sharadaḥ shatam, or 'a hundred autumns,' also occurs in the Ṛig- Veda (II, 27, 10; VII, 66, 16), yet shatam himâḥ may be re- garded as a relic of the period when the recollection of the colder regions from which the Vedic Aryas migrated had not yet been entirely forgotten. The second passage quoted by him is from the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa (VIII, 14) which says "wherefore in this northern region all the people who dwell beyond the Himavat, (called) the Uttara Kurus and the Uttara Madras are consecrated to the glorious rule (Vairâj- yam)." The Uttara Kurus are again described in the same Brâhmaṇa (VIII, 23) as the land of gods which no mortal may conquer, showing that the country had come to be re- garded as the domain of mythology. The Uttara Kurus are also mentioned in the Râmâyaṇa (IV, 43, 38) as the abode of those who performed the meritorious works, and in the Mahâbhârata (Sabhâ-Parvan, Ch. 28) Arjuna is told " Here

390 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. are the Uttara Kurus whom no one attempts to combat. That the Uttara Kurus were not a fabulous land is shown by the fact that a mountain, a people and a city called Ottoro- corra is mentioned by Ptolemy, and Lassen thinks that Me- gasthenes had the Uttara Kurus in view when he referred to the Hyperboreans. Muir concludes this section with a passage from the Sânkhyâyana or the Kaushîtakî Brâhmaṇa (VII, 6) where Pathyâ Svasti, or the goddess of speech, is said to know the northern region (udîchîm disham), and we are told that " Hence in the northern region speech is better known and better spoken, and it is to the north that men go to learn speech." Muir thinks that some faint reminiscence of an early connection with the north may be traced in these pass- ages. But none of them are conclusive, nor have we any in- dication therein of the original home being in tho Arctic re- gions, as we have in the case of the Vedic passages discussed previously which speak of the long, continuous dawn and night, or a year of ten months. We may, however, take the passages cited by Muir as corroborative evidence and they have been referred to here in the same light. It is upon the Vedic passages and legends examined in the previous chapters and the Avestic evidence discussed above that we mainly rely for establishing the existence of the primeval Aryan home in the Arctic regions; and when both these are taken together we get direct traditional testimony for holding that the origi- nal home of the Aryan races was situated near the North Pole and not in Central Asia, that it was destroyed by the advent of the Glacial epoch, and that the Indo-Iranians, who were compelled to leave the country, migrated southwards, and passing thr ough several provinces of Central Asia even- tually settled in the valleys of the Oxus, the Indus, the Kubhâ and the Rasâ, from which region we see them again migrating, the Indians to the east and the Persians to the west at the early dawn of the later traditional history.

CHAPTER XII. COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. The value of Comparative Mythology as corroborative evidence —Its use in the present case—The ancient calendars of the European Aryan races—The plurality of Dawns in the Lettish, the Greek and the Celtic mythology—The ancient Roman year of ten months and Numa's reform thereof--Plutarch's view--Im- probability of Lignana's theory pointed out—The ancient Celtic year—Closed with the last day of October and marked the com- mencement of winter and darkness—The winter feast celebrated on the day—The mid-summer feast of Lugnassad on the first of August—The commencement of summer on the first of May —The date of the battle of Moytura—Similar duration of the Old Norse year—Comparison with the ancient Greek calendar —All indicate six months' light and six months' darkness—Corro- boration derived from comparative philology—Two divisions of the year in primeval times—The Maid of Nine Forms in the Celtic mythology—The Nine paces of Thor in the Norse legend —Compared with the Vedic Navagvas and Vifra Navaza in the Avesta—Balder's home in the heavens—Indicates the long Arc- tic day—The Slavonic story of Ivan and his two brothers—Con- tinuous night in Ivan's home—Comparison with the Vedic le- gend of Trita—The Slavonic winter demon--The story of Dawn and Gloaming in the Finnish mythology—Indicates a long day of four weeks—Celtic and Teutonic legends representing the Sun-god's annual struggle with darkness—Baldur and Hodur, Cuchulainn and Fomori—Temporary sickness and indisposition of gods and heroes—Prof. Rhys' views thereon—The affliction indicates winter darkness—Celtic and Teutonic myths indi- cating long continuous day and night—All point to a primeval home in the Arctic region—Recent ethnological researches in favour of European home referred to-Indicate northern Germany or Scandinavia—The necessity of going still farther North—Prof. Rhys suggests Finland or White Sea-Not inconsistent with the theory which seeks to make the North Pole the home of the whole human race—Prof. Rhys' method and conclusion--Primeval

392 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. Arctic home established alike by the traditions of the eastern and western Aryas—Its relation with the general theory about the cradle of the human race at the North Pole explained. WE propose in this chapter to examine whether and how far the conclusions we have deduced from the Vedic and the Avestic evidence are corroborated by the myths and traditions of the European branches of the Aryan race. It is true that the evidence, collected in the foregoing chapters, is so general in character that it will have to be taken into account, even if the traditions of other races are found to conflict with it in any way. In other words, it has nothing specially Asiatic in it and without further corroboration we can, therefore, safely say that the original home of the Indo-Iranians, before the last Glacial epoch, must also be the home of the other Aryan peo- ple in those remote times. But still we may usefully examine the traditions of other Aryan races, and see if the latter have preserved any reminiscences of the original home, either in their ancient calendar or in their other ancient myths or le- gends. Of course the evidence cannot be expected to be as reliable as that found in the Veda or the Avesta, but still it has its own value for corroborative purposes. The History of com- parative mythology and philology shows that when Vedic literature and language became accessible to European scho- lars, quite a new light was thrown thereby on the Greek and the Roman mythology; and it is not unlikely that the discovery of the Vedic and the Avestic evidence, in favour of the Arctic home may similarly serve to elucidate some points in the le- gendary literature of the Aryan races in Europe. But the subject is so vast that it cannot be treated in a single chapter of this book, nor do I possess the necessary means to undertake the task. I shall, therefore, content myself with a statement of such facts as plainly indicate the reminiscence of an ancient Arctic home in the traditional literature of the Greek, Roman, Celtic, Teutonic and Slavonic branches of the Aryan

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY. 393. race; and I may here state that I am greatly indebted, for, this purpose to that learned and masterly work, The Hibbert Lectures, by Prof. Rhys, On the origin and growth of reli- gion as illustrated by Celtic Heathendom. Following the order adopted in the discussion of the Vedic evidence, we shall first take up the question of the ancient calendar, and see if the traditions preserved by the western Aryan races about the ancient year point out to any Arctic characteristics, such as the long dawn, the long day, the long night, or an annual period of sunshine of less than twelve months' duration. We have seen that the Dawn is very often spoken of in the plural in the Ṛig-Veda and that a group of thirty Dawn-Sisters is actually described as moving round and round with one mind and in the same enclosure without being separated from each other, a phenomenon which is peculiar only to the Arctic regions. This Vedic account of the Dawn does not stand by itself. Thus in the Lettish my- thology, the Dawn is called diewo dukte, or the sky-daughter or 'the god-daughter, much in the same way as the Uṣhas is called divo duhitā in the Ṛig-Veda; "and the poets of the Lets speak likewise of many beautiful sky-daughters, or god- daughters diewo dukruzeles."* Prof. Max Muller further informs us that in the Greek mythology we can "easily find among the wives of Hêrakles, significant names, such as Auge (sun-light), Xanthis (yellow), Chrysêis (golden), Iole (violet), Aglaia (resplendent), and Eône, which cannot be separated from Eos, dawn." † The same story appears again in the Celtic mythology where Cuchulainn, the Sun-hero, is described as having a wife, who is variously named as Emer, Ethne Ingubai. Upon this Prof. Rhys observes that "it may be that the myth pictured the dawn not as one but as many to all of whom the Sun-god made love in the course of the three *Max Muller's Contributions to the Science of Mythology, p. 432. † Id. p. 722.

394 THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS. hundred and more days of the year."* It has been shown previously that the description of the Vedic dawns, as a close- ly united band, precludes us from regarding them as three hundred and more dawns of the year ; and that the only infer- ence we can draw from a closely united group of dawns is that it represents the long and continuous Arctic dawn divided into a number of parts of twenty-four hours each for conveni- ence. The description of the dawn in the Lettish mythology does not seem to be so full as that in the Vedas and by itself it may not be sufficient to indicate the Polar dawn; but con- sidering the fact that the dawn is described as sky-daughter and spoken of in the plural by the poets of the Lets and the poets of the Ṛig-Veda alike, we may safely extend to the Lettish mythology the conclusion we have drawn from the more detailed description of the Dawn in the Ṛig-Veda, and the same may be said of the Celtic and the Greek stories of the dawn given above. In treating of the Gavâm-ayanam and the corresponding legend of the Dashagvas, a reference has already been made to the Greek legend of Hêlios, who is described as having 350 oxen and as many sheep, obviously representing a year of 350 days and nights, and to the Roman tradition about December being the tenth and the last month of the year as denoted by its etymology. Prof. Lignana in his essay on The Navagvas and the Dashagvas of the Ṛig-Veda, published in the proceedings of the seventh International Congress of the Orientalists, 1886, however, remarks that the passage of Plu- tarch in the life of Numa, where this tradition is mentioned, does not support the view that the Romans originally counted not more than ten months. It is true that Plutarch mentions an alternative story of Numa's altering the order of months "making March the third which was the first, January first which was the eleventh of Romulus, and February the second

• Rhys' Hibbert Lectures p. 458.