The Arctic Home in the Vedas c16.23

Language: English

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I might in passing here refer to an instance which illustrates the danger of relying exclusively on Comparative Philology in this respect. Dr. Schrader has shown that copper, at any rate, was known to the primitive Aryans; and he admits the possibility that this metal may, in isolated cases, have been employed in the manufacture of weapons like fighting knives or lance-heads. But we are told that there are linguistic difficulties which prevent us from assuming that gold and silver were known in the primitive period. On an examination of the subject it will, however, be seen that in cases like these the philologist relies too much on his own methods or follows them too rigidly. For instance *khalkos* (copper or bronze) is mentioned by Homer as a medium of exchange (Il. vii, 472); and Comparative Philology discloses two etymological equations, one derived from the root *mei (Sans. me) denoting ‘barter,’ and the other derived from the Sanskrit *krî*, Greek *priamai*, meaning purchase. The *Rig-Veda* (VIII, 1, 5) also mentions a measure of value called *shulka*, and, as the word is used in later Sanskrit literature to denote a small payment made at a toll-house, it is not unlikely that *shulka* originally meant a small coin of copper or bronze similar in character to the *khalkos* mentioned by Homer.

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Now it is true that ordinarily Greek *kh*, is represented by *h* in Sanskrit, and that if this rule be rigidly applied to the present case it would not be possible to phonetically identify *khalkos* with *shulka*. Philologists have, therefore, tried to compare *khalkos* with Sanskrit *hrîku* or *hliku*. But, as remarked by Dr. Schrader, the connection seems to be altogether improbable. *Hrîku* is not a Vedic word, nor does it mean copper or bronze. Despite the phonetic difficulty,—and the difficulty is not so serious as it seems to be at the first sight, for Sanskrit *sh* is represented by *k* in Greek, and this *k* sometimes gives place to the aspirated *kh*,—I am, therefore, inclined to identify *khalkos* with *shulka*; and if this is correct, we must conclude that undivided Aryans were familiar with some metal, either copper or bronze, as a medium of exchange. There are many other points similar in character. But it is impossible to go further into this subject in this place. I only want to point out the reservation with which we shall have now to accept the results of Comparative Philology in forming our estimate of the degree of culture reached by the primitive Aryans, and show that when the primitive Aryan culture is carried back to the inter-Glacial age, the hypothesis that primitive Aryans were hardly better than the savage races of the present day at once falls to the ground.

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If the civilisation of some Aryan races in the Neolithic age appears to be inferior or imperfect it must, therefore, be, as observed above, ascribed to relapse or retrogression after the destruction of the ancient civilisation by the Ice Age, and the necessarily hard and nomadic life led by the people who survived the cataclysm. The Asiatic Aryans, it is true, were able to preserve a good deal more of the original religion and culture, but it seems to be mainly due to their having incorporated the old traditions into their religious hymns or songs; and made it the exclusive business of a few to preserve and hand down with religious scrupulosity these prayers and songs to future generations by means of memory specially trained and cultivated for the purpose. But even then how difficult the task was can be very well seen from the fact that a greater portion of the hymns and songs originally comprised in the Avesta has been lost; and though the Veda is better preserved, still what we have at present is only a portion of the literature which is believed on good grounds to have once been in existence. It may seem passing strange that these books should disclose to us the existence of an original Arctic home so many centuries after the traditions were incorporated into them. But the evidence in the foregoing pages shows that it is a fact; and if so, we must hold that the Neolithic Aryan people in Europe were not, as Prof.

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Max Muller thinks, progressive, but, for the time at least, necessarily retrogressive savages working only with such residua of the ante-diluvian civilisation as were saved from its general wreck.¹