The Arctic Home in the Vedas c16.19.3

c16.19.3

We can, on this theory, easily explain why the Gṛihya-Sûtras attach special importance to the Uttarâyaṇa from a ceremonial point of view, and why death during the Dakshiṇâyana is regarded as inauspicious. How the inter-glacial year of seven or ten months was changed to a year of twelve months in postglacial times, and how the equinoctial division which obtained at first on the analogy of the Devayâna and the Pitṛiyâna, was subsequently altered to the solstitial one, the old meaning of the word Uttarâyaṇa undergoing (Orion, p. 25 f.) a similar change, are questions, which, though important in the history of the Aryan calendar, are not relevant in this place; and we shall, therefore, proceed with the subject in hand. It is urged by some writers that though the worship of natural elements is found to obtain in several ancient Indo-European religions, yet its beginnings cannot be supposed to go back to the time of the common origin of the related peoples. Dr. Schrader has ably refuted this view in the concluding pages of his book on the pre-historic antiquities of Aryan peoples; and the theory of the Arctic home powerfully supports Dr. Schrader in his conclusions. "If we put aside everything unsafe and false," observes Dr.