The Arctic Home in the Vedas c14.26.2

c14.26.2

It is inferred from this that the Fargard does not contain an account of successive migrations, but merely gives us a description of the countries known to the ancestors of the Iranians at the time when the Fargards were composed. In other words, the chapter is geographical and not historical, containing nothing but a specification of the countries known to the Iranians at a particular time; and it is argued that it would be converting geography into history to take the different countries to represent the successive stages of migrations from the primeval home, when not a word about migration is found in the original text. Professor Darmesteter further observes that as the enumeration of the sixteen lands begins with Airyana Vaêjo by the river Vanguhi Dâitya and ends with Rangha, which corresponds with the Vedic Rasâ, a mythical river that divides the gods from the fiends, and that as the Vanguhi and the Rangha were originally the celestial rivers that came down from heaven (like the two heavenly Gânges) to surround the earth, the one in the east and the other in the west, (Bundahish, XX), the Airyana Vaêjo and the Rangha must be taken to denote the eastern and the western boundaries of the countries known to the ancient Iranians at the time when the Fargard was composed.