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The Arctic Home in the Vedas c14.s2: Vendidad, Fargard II

The Arctic Home in the Vedas c14.s2

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Vendidad, Fargard II

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| Darmesteter. | Spiegel. |
| 22. And Ahura Mazda spake unto Yima saying, “O fair Yima, son of Vîvanghat ! Upon the material world the fatal winters are going to fall, that shall bring the fierce, foul frost; upon the material world the fatal winters are going to fall, that shall make snowflakes fall thick, even an | 46. Then spake Ahura Mazda to Yima : “ Yima the fair, the son of Vîvaṅhâo, |
| | 47. Upon the corporeal world will the evil of winter come : |
| | 48. Wherefore a vehement, destroying frost will arise. |
| | 49. Upon the corporeal world will the evil of winter come : |
| | 50. Wherefore snow will fall |

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| *Darmesteter.* | *Spiegel.* |
| *a r e d v î* deep on the highest tops of mountains. | in great abundance, 51. On the summits of the mountains, on the breadth of the heights. |
| 23. And all the three sorts of beasts shall perish, those that live in the wilderness, and those that live on the tops of the mountains, and those that live in the bosom of the dale, under the shelter of stables. | 52. From three (places), O Yima, let the cattle depart, 53. If they are in the most fearful places, 54. If they are on the tops of the mountains, 55. If they are in the depths of the valleys, 56. To secure dwelling places. |
| 24. Before that winter, those fields would bear plenty of grass for cattle : now with floods that stream, with snows that melt, it will seem a happy land in the world, the land wherein footprints even of sheep may still be seen. | 57. Before this winter the country produced pasture ; 58. Before flow waters, behind is the melting of the snow. 59. Clouds, O Yima, will come over the inhabited regions, 60. Which now behold the feet of the greater and smaller cattle : |
| 25. Therefore make thee a Vara, long as a riding-ground, on every side of the square, and thither bring the seeds of sheep and oxen, of men, of dogs, of birds, and of red blazing fires. | 61. Therefore make thou a circle of the length of a race-ground to all four corners. 62. Thither bring thou the seed of the cattle, of the beasts of burden, and of men, of dogs, of birds, and of the red burning fires. |

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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 equivalent to a single day? There is no reference to Angra Mainyu in this passage which describes in the form of a prophecy 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 *aredvî* deep, which Spiegel translates by the phrase ‘in great abundance,’ while Darmesteter, quoting from the commentary, explains in a footnote that “even where it (the snow) is least, it will be one *Vîtasti* 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.

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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, according 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 complete harmony with the latest geological researches, there is no 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.

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Darmesteter in his translation of the Fargards observes in a footnote 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 Airyan race, was situated near the North Pole, and that the ancestors of our race abandoned it not out of "irresistible impulse," or "overcrowding," 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.

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It is, therefore, a matter of regret that the importance of this tradition should have been so long misunderstood or overlooked.

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It will be seen from the foregoing discussion that the traditional evidence preserved in the first two Fargards of the Vendidad is especially important for our purpose. The Dawn-hymns in the Rig-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 climate 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 forefathers 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.

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We have now direct traditional evidence to shew (1) that the Airyana Vaêjo had originally a good climate, 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 sunrise only once a year, and (3) that the happy land was rendered uninhabitable by the advent of a Glacial epoch which destroyed all life therein. 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 passages to render the same comprehensible to them. We cannot, therefore, deny that we are indebted to these scientific 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.

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It has been preserved during thousands of years simply as an ancient record or tradition, though its meaning was not intelligible, 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 Darmesteter. 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.

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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 mythical land in the later Parsi literature, somewhat like Mount Meru, the seat of Hindu gods, in the Purāṇas. But for all that we cannot deny that in the account of the Airyana Vaējo 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.

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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 Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa (I, 8, 1, 1-10), and the same story is found, with modifications and additions, in the Mahābhārata (Vana-Parvan, Ch. 187), and in the Mātsya, the Bhāgavata and other Purāṇas. 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 Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa. 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 (nirvoḍhā) all creatures. The Brāhmaṇa 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 (nāvam) and embark in it when the flood would arise. Manu constructs the ship accordingly, and when the flood rises, embarks in it, fastens its cable (*pâsham*) to the fish’s horn and passes over (*ati-dudrâva*) to “ this northern mountain ” (*etam uttaram girim*) by which phrase the commentator 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 offspring, which is called Manu’s off-spring (*prajâtiḥ*). This is the substance of the story as found in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa, and the same incident is apparently referred to in the Atharva Veda Saṃhitâ (XIX, 39, 7-8), which says that the *kuṣṭha* plant was born on the very spot on the summit of the Himavat, the seat of the ‘Gliding down of the ship’ (*nâva-prabhraṃshanam*), the golden ship with golden tackle that moved through the heaven. In the Mahâbhârata version 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, mentions 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.

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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 mentions 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 indicates that the connection of ice with the deluge was not originally 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 account 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 assigns 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 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.¹ The Avestic account is, however, more specific than that in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa, and as it is

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¹ 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 :—

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"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 having 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 sacrificed a grateful offering to Zeus Phyxios, or the God of escape; he also erected altars in Thessaly to the twelve great gods of Olympus."

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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.

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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 compose the existing Vendidad." The mention of Hapta Heṇdu, a name not preserved even in the later Vedic literature, is said also to point to the same conclusion.

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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 expression shatam himâḥ, or ‘a hundred winters,’ occurring in several places in the Rig-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 Rig-Veda (II, 27, 10; VII, 66, 16), yet shatam himâḥ may be regarded 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 (Vairâjyam)." 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 regarded 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 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 Ottorocorra is mentioned by Ptolemy, and Lassen thinks that Megasthenes 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 conncetion with the north may be traced in these passages. But none of them are conclusive, nor have we any indication therein of the original home being in the Arctic regions, 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 original 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 through several provinces of Central Asia eventually 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.

Cites (14)