The Arctic Home in the Vedas c7.21.3

c7.21.3

In the Vendidad, Fargard II, para 40, (or, according to Spiegel, para 133 ), we find the sentence, Tae cha ayara mainyaente yat yare, meaning “They regard, as a day, what is a year.” This is but a paraphrase of the statement, in the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, and the context in the Parsi scriptures removes all possible doubts regarding the Polar character of the statement. The latter part of the second Fargard, wherein this passage occurs, contains a discourse between Ahura Mazda and Yima.¹ Ahura Mazda warns Yima, the first king of men, of the approach of a dire winter, which is to destroy every living creature by covering the land with a thick sheet of ice, and advises Yima to build a Vara, or an enclosure, to preserve the seeds of every kind of animals and plants. The meeting is said to have taken place in the Airyana Vaejo, or the Paradise of the Iranians. The Vara, or the enclosure, advised by Ahura Mazda, is accordingly prepared, and Yima asked Ahura Mazda, "O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! What lights are there to give light in the Vara which Yima made?" Ahura Mazda answered, "There are uncreated lights and created lights. There the stars, the moon and the sun are only once (a year) seen to rise and set, and a year seems only as a day." I have taken Darmesteter's rendering, but Spiegel's is substantially the same. This passage is important from various standpoints.