The Arctic Home in the Vedas c12.40

c12.40

The cosmic circulation of aerial waters described above, is not peculiar to the Indo-Iranian mythology. Dr. Warren, in his Paradise Found, states that a similar circulation of aerial waters is mentioned in the works of Homer. Homer describes the sun as returning to the flowing of the ocean, or sinking into it, and again rising from it and mounting the sky. All rivers and every sea and all fountains and even deep wells are again said to arise from the deep flowing ocean, which was believed to encircle the earth.¹ Hēlios or the sun is further described as sailing from west to east in a golden boat or cup, evidently meaning that the underworld was supposed to be full of waters. But Homeric scholars seem to have raised unnecessary difficulties in the proper interpretation of these passages by assuming that Homer conceived the earth to be flat and that as the Hades was a region of complete darkness, the sun could not be said to go there even after his setting. Dr. Warren has, however, shown that the assumption is entirely groundless, and that Homer’s earth was really a sphere and that the underworld was full of aerial waters. We have seen above, how some Vedic scholars have raised similar difficulties in the interpretation of the Vṛitra myth by supposing that the lower celestial hemisphere was unknown to the Vedic bards. This is probably a reflection of the Homeric controversy, but as pointed out by Dr. Warren,¹ these baseless assumptions are due mainly to a prejudice with which many scholars approach the question of the interpretation of ancient myths. It is assumed that the early man could not possibly have known anything about the world, beyond what the rudest savages know at present; and plain and explicit statements are sometimes put aside, distorted, or ignored by scholars, who, had they not been blinded by prejudice, would certainly have interpreted them in a different way. It is impossible to do justice to the subject in this place, and I would refer the reader for further details to Dr. Warren’s instructive works on the subject. Dr. Warren also states that Euripides, like Homer, held the view that there was one fountain of all the world’s water, and that the same conception is expressed by Hesiod in his *Theogony*, where all rivers as sons, and all fountains and brooks as daughters, are traced back to Okeanos. Then we have the constant descending movement of all waters until they reach the world-surrounding Ocean-river at the equator, beyond which is the underworld, similar to the movements of aerial waters described in the Avesta. Aristotle, in his *Meteors*, is said also to have mentioned “a river in the air constantly flowing betwixt the heaven and the earth and made by the ascending and the descending vapours.”² It is again pointed out by Grill that the ancient Germans had a similar world-river, and the descending Ukko’s stream and the ascending Amma’s stream in the Finnish mythology are similarly believed to be the traces of a like cosmic water-circulation.