The Arctic Home in the Vedas c2.5.1

c2.5.1

It has been already stated that the beginnings of Aryan civilisation must be supposed to date back several thousand years before the oldest Vedic period; and when the commencement of the Post-glacial epoch is brought down to 8000 B. C., it is not at all surprising if the date of primitive Aryan life is found to go back to it from 4500 B. C., the age of the oldest Vedic period. In fact, it is the main point sought to be established in the present volume. There are many passages in the Rig-Veda, which, though hitherto looked upon as obscure and unintelligible, do, when interpreted in the light of recent scientific researches, plainly disclose the Polar attributes of the Vedic deities, or the traces of an ancient Arctic calendar; while the Avesta expressly tells us that the happy land of Airyana Vaêjo, or the Aryan Paradise, was located in a region where the sun shone but once a year, and that it was destroyed by the invasion of snow and ice, which rendered its climate inclement and necessitated a migration southward. These are plain and simple statements, and when we put them side by side with what we know of the Glacial and the Post-glacial epoch from the latest geological researches, we cannot avoid the conclusion that the primitive Aryan home was both Arctic and inter-glacial. I have often asked myself, why the real bearing of these plain and simple statements should have so long remained undiscovered;