The Arctic Home in the Vedas c16.32

c16.32

Such, in brief, are the views entertained by Hindu orthodox theologians, scholars and philosophers in regard to the origin, character and authority of the Vedas; and on comparing them with the results of our investigation, it will be found that Patanjali's and Vyâsa's view about the antiquity and the eternity of the Vedas derives material support from the theory of the Arctic home which we have endeavoured to prove in the foregoing pages on strict scientific and historical grounds. It has been shown that Vedic religion and worship are both inter-glacial; and that though we cannot trace their ultimate origin, yet the Arctic character of the Vedic deities fully proves that the powers of Nature represented by them had been already clothed with divine attributes by the primitive Aryans in their original home round about the North Pole, or the Meru of the Purânas. When the Polar home was destroyed by glaciation, the Aryan people that survived the catastrophe carried with them as much of their religion and worship as it was possible to do under the circumstances; and the relic, thus saved from the general wreck, was the basis of the Aryan religion in the post-Glacial age. The whole period from the commencement of the post-Glacial era to the birth of Buddha may, on this theory, be approximately divided into four parts:—