The Arctic Home in the Vedas c4.7

Language: English

c4.7.1

But whilst the conclusions of the philologists and mythologists are thus being revised in the light of new scientific discoveries, an equally important work yet remains to be done. It has been stated above that the discovery of the Vedic literature imparted a fresh impulse to the study of myths and legends. But the Vedas themselves, which admittedly form the oldest records of the Aryan race, are as yet imperfectly understood. They had already grown unintelligible to a certain extent even in the days of the *Brâhmaṇas* several centuries before Christ, and had it not been for the labours of Indian Etymologists and Grammarians, they would have remained a sealed book upto the present time. The Western Scholars have indeed developed, to a certain extent, these Native methods of interpretation with the aid of facts brought to light by comparative philology and mythology. But no etymological or philological analysis can help us in thoroughly understanding a passage which contains ideas and sentiments foreign or unfamiliar to us. This is one of the principal difficulties of Vedic interpretation. The Storm or the Dawn theory may help us in understanding some of the legends in this ancient book.

c4.7.2

But there are passages, which, in spite of their simple diction, are quite unintelligible on any of these theories, and in such cases Native scholars, like Sâyaṇa, are either content with simply paraphrasing the words, or have recourse to distortion of words and phrases in order to make the passages yield a sense intelligible to them; while some of the Western scholars are apt to regard such texts as corrupt or imperfect. In either case, however, it is an undoubted fact that some Vedic texts are yet unintelligible, and, therefore, untranslatable. Prof. Max Muller was fully alive to these difficulties. "A translation of the Rig-Veda," he observes in his introduction to the translation of the Vedic hymns in the Sacred Books of the East series, "is a task for the next century,"¹ and the only duty of the present scholars is to "reduce the untranslatable portion to a narrower and narrower limit," as has been done by Yâska and other Native scholars. But if the scientific discoveries of the last century have thrown a new light on the history and culture of man in primitive times, we may as well expect to find in them a new key to the interpretation of the Vedic myths and passages, which admittedly preserve for us the oldest beliefs of the Aryan race.

c4.7.3

If man existed before the last Glacial period and witnessed the gigantic changes which brought on the Ice Age, it is not unnatural to expect that a reference, howsoever concealed and distant, to these events would be found in the oldest traditionary beliefs and memories of mankind. Dr. Warren in his interesting and highly suggestive work the *Paradise Found or the Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole* has attempted to interpret ancient myths and legends in the light of modern scientific discoveries, and has come to the conclusion that the original home of the whole human race must be sought for in regions near the North Pole. My object is not so comprehensive. I intend to confine myself only to the Vedic literature and show that if we read some of the passages in the Vedas, which have hitherto been considered incomprehensible, in the light of the new scientific discoveries, we are forced to the conclusion that the home of the ancestors of the Vedic people was somewhere near the North Pole before the last Glacial epoch. The task is not an easy one, considering the fact that the Vedic passages, on which I rely, had to be, and have been, hitherto either ignored or explained away somehow, or misinterpreted one way or another by Native and European scholars alike.

c4.7.4

But I hope to show that these interpretations, though they have been provisionally accepted, are not satisfactory, and that new discoveries in archæology and geology provide us with a better key for the interpretation of these passages. Thus if some of the conclusions of the mythologist and the philologist are overthrown by these discoveries, they have rendered a still greater service by furnishing us with a better key for the interpretation of the most ancient Aryan legends, and the results obtained by using the new key cannot, in their turn, fail to throw further light on the primitive history of the Aryan race, and thus supplement or modify the conclusions now arrived at by the archæologist and the geologist.