The Arctic Home in the Vedas c16.22.1

c16.22.1

A people, who had come to worship the powers of Nature as manifestations of divine will and energy, who had a well-developed language of their own, and who had already evolved a legendary literature out of the Arctic conditions of the year in their congenial home near the North Pole, may well be expected to have made a good advance in civilisation. But we have at present very few means by which we can ascertain the exact degree of civilisation attained by the undivided Aryans in their primitive home. Comparative Philology tells us that primitive Aryans were familiar with the art of spinning and weaving, knew and worked in metals, constructed boats and chariots, founded and lived in cities, carried on buying and selling, and had made considerable progress in agriculture. We also know that important social or political institutions or organisations, as for instance, marriage or the laws of property, prevailed amongst the forefathers of our race in those early days; and linguistic palæontology furnishes us with a long list of the fauna and the flora known to the undivided Aryans. These are important linguistic discoveries, and taking them as they are, they evidently disclose a state of civilisation higher than that of the savages of the Neolithic age.