The Arctic Home in the Vedas c14.s2.4.2

c14.s2.4.2

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.