The Arctic Home in the Vedas c12.3

Language: English

c12.3.1

WE have now examined most of the Vedic passages, which directly show that the Polar or the Circum-Polar characteristics, determined in the third chapter, were known, by tradition, to the Vedic bards. We started with the tradition about the night of the gods, or a day and a night of six months each, and found that it could be traced back to the Indo-Iranian, if not to the Indo-Germanic, period. A close examination of the dawn-hymns in the Rig-Veda next disclosed the fact that Uṣas, or the deity presiding over the dawn, is often addressed in the plural number in the Vedic hymns, and that this could be accounted for only on the supposition that the Vedic dawns were a closely connected band of many dawns,—a supposition, which was found to be fully borne out by express passages in the Vedic literature, stating, in unambiguous terms, that the Vedic dawns were 30 in number, and that in ancient times a period of several days elapsed between the first appearance of light on the horizon and the rising of the sun. We have also found that the dawn is expressly described in the Rig- Veda as moving round like a wheel, a characteristic, which is true only in the case of the Polar dawn. These facts sufficiently prove the acquaintance of the Vedic bards with the physical phenomena, witnessible only in the Arctic regions.

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But to make the matter more certain, I have, in the last three chapters, quoted and discussed Vedic passages, which go to prove that the long Arctic nights and the corresponding long days of varying duration, as well as, a year of ten months or five seasons, were equally known to the poets of the Rig-Veda. An examination of the ancient sacrificial system, and especially of the annual Sattras and night-sacrifices, further showed that in old times yearly sacrificial sessions did not last for twelve months as at present, but were completed in nine or ten months; and the hundred night-sacrifices were, at that time, really performed, as their name indicates, during the darkness of the long night. The legends of Dîrghatamas and Aditi's sons, and the tradition about the sacrificial sessions of the Navagvas and the Dashagvas also pointed to the same conclusion. Our case does not, therefore, depend on an isolated fact here and an isolated fact there. We have seen that the half-year-long day and night, the long dawn with its revolving splendours, the long continuous night matched by the corresponding long day and associated with a succession of ordinary days and nights of varying lengths, and the total annual period of sunshine of less than twelve months are the principal peculiar characteristics of the Polar or the Circum-Polar calendar;

c12.3.3

and when express passages are found in the Vedas, the oldest record of early Aryan thoughts and sentiments, showing that each and every one of these characteristics was known to the Vedic bards, who themselves lived in a region where the year was made up of three hundred and sixty or three hundred and sixty five days, one is irresistibly led to the conclusion that the poets of the Rig-Veda must have known these facts by tradition and that their ancestors must have lived in regions where such phenomena were possible. It is not to be expected that the evidence on each and every one of these points will be equally conclusive, especially as we are dealing with facts which existed thousands of years ago. But if we bear in mind that the facts are astronomically connected in such a way that if one of them is firmly established all the others follow from it as a matter of course, the cumulative effect of the evidence discussed in the previous chapters cannot fail to be convincing. It is true that many of the passages, quoted in support of the Arctic theory, are interpreted, in the way I have done, for the first time; but I have already pointed out that this is due to the fact that the real key to the interpretation of these passages was discovered only during the last 30 or 40 years.

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Yâska and Sâyaṇa knew nothing definite about the circum-polar or the Arctic regions, and when a Vedic passage was found not to yield a sense intelligible to them, they either contented themselves with barely explaining the verbal texture of the passage, or distorted it to suit their own ideas. Western scholars have corrected some of these mistakes, but as the possibility of an Arctic home in pre-glacial times was not admitted 30 or 40 years back, the most explicit references, whether in the Avesta or the Ṛig-Veda, to a primeval home in the extreme north, have been either altogether ignored, or somehow or other explained away, even by Western scholars. Many of the passages cited by me fall under this class; but I trust that if my interpretations are examined without any bias and in the light of the latest scientific researches, they will be found to be far more natural and simple than those in vogue at present. In some cases no new interpretations were, however, necessary. The passages have been correctly interpreted; but in the absence of the true key to their meaning, their real import was either altogether missed, or but imperfectly understood. In such cases I have had to exhibit the passages in their true light or colours, giving in each case, my reasons for doing the same. This has sometimes rendered it necessary to introduce certain topics not directly relevant to the question in hand;

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but on the whole, I think, it will be found that I have, as far as possible, tried to confine myself to the discussion of the direct evidence bearing on the points in issue, and have examined it according to the strict method of historic or scientific investigation. I did not start with any preconceived notion in favour of the Arctic theory, nay, I regarded it as highly improbable at first; but the accumulating evidence in its support eventually forced me to accept it, and, in all probability, the evidence cited in the previous chapters, will, I think, produce the same impression on the reader's mind.