The Arctic Home in the Vedas c7.21.4

c7.21.4

First of all it tells us, that the Airyana Vaejo, or the original home of the Iranians, was a place which was rendered uninhabitable by glaciation; and secondly that in this original home the sun rose and set only once in the year, and that the year was like a day to the inhabitants of the place. The bearing of the passage in regard to glaciation will be discussed later on. For the present, it is enough to point out how completely it corroborates and ellucidates the statement in the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa stated and discussed above. The yearly rising and setting of the sun is possible only at the North Pole, and the mention of this characteristic leaves no room for doubting that the Vara and the Airyana Vaejo were both located in the Arctic or Circum-Polar regions, and that the passage in the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa also refers to the Polar year. The fact that the statement is found both in the Iranian and the Indian literature further negatives the probability of its being a fabrication from mathematical calculation. Nor can we suppose that both the branches of the Aryan race became acquainted with this fact simply by an effort of unassisted imagination, or that it was a mere metaphor. The only remaining alternative is to hold, as Sir Charles Lyell¹ has remarked, that the tradition was "founded on the observation of Nature."