Tilak - THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS (VI)

Tilak - THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS (VI)

CHAPTER XII

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY

The value of Comparative Mythology as corroborative evidence — Its use in the present case — The ancient calendars of the European Aryan races — The plurality of Dawns in the Lettish, the Greek and the Celtic mythology — The ancient Roman year of ten months and Numa’s reform thereof — Plutarch’s view — Improbability of Lignana’s theory pointed out — The ancient Celtic year — Closed with the last day of October and marked the commencement of winter and darkness — The winter feast celebrated on the day — The mid-summer feast of Lugnassad on the first of August — The commencement of summer on the first of May — The date of the battle of Moytura — Similar duration of the Old Norse year — Comparison with the ancient Greek calendar — All indicate six months’ light and six months’ darkness — Corroboration derived from comparative philology — Two divisions of the year in primeval times — The Maid of Nine Forms in the Celtic mythology — The Nine paces of Thor in the Norse legend — Compared with the Vedic Navagvas and Vifra Navaza in the Avesta — Balder’s home in the heavens — Indicates the long Arctic day — The Slavonic story of Ivan and his two brothers — Continuous night in Ivan’s home — Comparison with the Vedic legend of Trita — The Slavonic winter demon — The story of Dawn and Gloaming in the Finnish mythology — Indicates a long day of four weeks — Celtic and Teutonic legends representing the Sun-god’s annual struggle with darkness — Baldur and Hodur, Cuchulainn and Fomori — Temporary sickness and indisposition of gods and heroes — Prof. Rhys’ views thereon — The affliction indicates winter darkness — Celtic and Teutonic myths indicating long continuous day and night — All point to a primeval home in the Arctic region — Recent ethnological researches in favor of European home referred to — Indicate northern Germany or Scandinavia — The necessity of going still farther North — Prof. Rhys suggests Finland or White Sea — Not inconsistent with the theory which seeks to make the North Pole the home of the whole human race — Prof. Rhys’ method and conclusion — Primeval Arctic home established alike by the traditions of the eastern and western Aryas — Its relation with the general theory about the cradle of the human race at the North Pole explained.

            We propose in this chapter to examine whether and how far the conclusions we have deduced from the Vedic and the Avestic evidence are corroborated by the myths and traditions of the European branches of the Aryan race. It is true that the evidence, collected in the foregoing chapters, is so general in character that it will have to be taken into account, even if the traditions of other races are found to conflict with it in any way. In other words, it has nothing specially Asiatic in it and without further corroboration we can, therefore, safely say that the original home of the Indo-Iranians, before the last Glacial epoch, must also be the home of the other Aryan people in those remote times. But still we may usefully examine the traditions of other Aryan races, and see if the latter have preserved any reminiscences of the original home, either in their ancient calendar or in their other ancient myths or legends. Of course the evidence cannot be expected to be as reliable as that found in the Veda or the Avesta, but still it has its own value for corroborative purposes. The History of comparative mythology and philology shows that when Vedic literature and language became accessible to European scholars, quite a new light was thrown thereby on the Greek and the Roman mythology; and it is not unlikely that the discovery of the Vedic and the Avestic evidence, in favor of the Arctic home may similarly serve to elucidate some points in the legendary literature of the Aryan races in Europe. But the subject is so vast that it cannot be treated in a single chapter of this book, nor do I possess the necessary means to undertake the task. I shall, therefore, content myself with a statement of such facts as plainly indicate the reminiscence of an ancient Arctic home in the traditional literature of the Greek, Roman, Celtic, Teutonic and Slavonic branches of the Aryan race; and I may here state that I am greatly indebted for this purpose to that learned and masterly work, The Hibbert lectures, by Prof. Rhys. On the origin and growth of religion as illustrated by Celtic Heathendom.

            Following the order adopted in the discussion of the Vedic evidence, we shall first take up the question of the ancient calendar, and see if the traditions preserved by the western Aryan races about the ancient year point out to any Arctic characteristics, such as the long dawn; the long day, the long night, or an annual period of sunshine of less than twelve months’ duration. We have seen that the Dawn is very often spoken of in the plural in the Ṛig-Veda and that a group of thirty Dawn-Sisters is actually described as moving round and round with one mind and in the same enclosure without being separated from each other, a phenomenon which is peculiar only to the Arctic regions. This Vedic account of the Dawn does not stand by itself. Thus in the Lettish mythology, the Dawn is called diewo dukte, or the sky-daughter or the god-daughter, much in the same way as the Uṣhas is called divo duhitâ in the Ṛig-Veda; “and the poets of the Lets speak likewise of many beautiful sky-daughters, or goddaughters diewo dukruzeles.”* (Max Müller’s Contributions to the Science of Mythology, p. 432. )Prof. Max Müller; further informs us that in the Greek mythology we can “easily find among the wives of Hêrakles, significant names, such as Auge (sun-light), Xanthis (yellow), Chrysêis (golden), Iole (violet), Aglaia (resplendent), and Eône, which cannot be separated from Eos, dawn.”( Max Müller’s Contributions to the Science of Mythology, p. 722) The same story appears again in the Celtic mythology where Cuchulainn, the Sun-hero, is described as having a wife, who is variously named as Emer, Ethne Ingubai. Upon this Prof. Rhys observes that “it may be that the myth pictured the dawn not as one but as many to all of whom the Sun-god made love in the course of the three hundred and more days of the year.”‡( Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures p. 458.) It has been shown previously that the description of the Vedic dawns, as a closely united band, precludes us from regarding them as three hundred and more dawns of the year; and that the only inference we can draw from a closely united group of dawns is that it represents the long and continuous Arctic dawn divided into a number of parts of twenty-four hours each for convenience. The description of the dawn in the Lettish mythology does not seem to be so full as that in the Vedas and by itself it may not be sufficient to indicate the Polar dawn; but considering the fact that the dawn is described as sky-daughter and spoken of in the plural by the poets of the Lets and the poets of the Ṛig-Veda alike, we may safely extend to the Lettish mythology the conclusion we have drawn from the more detailed description of the Dawn in the Ṛig-Veda, and the same may be said of the Celtic and the Greek stories of the dawn given above.

In treating of the Gavâm-ayanam and the corresponding legend of the Dashagvas, a reference has already been made to the Greek legend of Hêlios, who is described as having 350 oxen and as many sheep, obviously representing a year of 350 days and nights, and to the Roman tradition about December being the tenth and the last month of the year as denoted by its etymology. Prof. Lignana in his essay on The Navagvas and the Dashagvas of the Ṛig-Veda, published in the proceedings of the seventh International Congress of the Orientalists, 1886, however, remarks that the passage of Plutarch in the life of Numa, where this tradition is mentioned, does not support the view that the Romans originally counted not more than ten months. It is true that Plutarch mentions an alternative story of Numa’s altering the order of months “making March the third which was the first, January first which was the eleventh of Romulus, and February the second which was the twelfth and last.” But immediately afterwards Plutarch says, “Many, however, assert that two months of January and February were added by Numa, whereas before they had reckoned ten months in the year”; and in the next paragraph gives his own opinion, “That the Roman year contained at first ten months only and not twelve, we have a proof in the name of the last; for they still call it December, or the tenth month; and that March was first is also evident, because the fifth from it was called Quintilis, the sixth Sextilis, and so the rest in their order.”* (Vide Langhorne’s Translation of Plutarch’s Lives, published by Ward, Lock and Co., London, pp. 53, 54.) I have referred to this passage previously and shown that Plutarch’s reasoning about the order of the months as indicated by their numerical names cannot be lightly set aside. If January and February were the last two months in the ancient calendar of the Romans, we should have to assume that the numerical order from Quintilis to December was abruptly given up after December which does not seem probable. It is, therefore, more reasonable to hold that Numa actually added two months to the old year, and that the story of the transposition of the two months of January and February from the end to the beginning of the year was a later suggestion put forward by those who knew not how to account for a year of ten months, or 304 days only. But besides Plutarch, we have also the testimony of Macrobius, who, as stated before, tells us that Romulus had a year of ten months only. There can, therefore, be little doubt about the existence of a tradition of the ancient Roman year of ten months and we now see that it is thoroughly intelligible by comparison with the annual sacrificial sattras of ten months mentioned in the Vedic literature. The names of the Roman months fromQuintilis to December further show that the months of the year had no special names in ancient times, but were named simply in their numerical order, a fact which accounts for the absence of common names for the months of the year in different Aryan languages.

            The evidence regarding the ancient year of Celts, Teutons and Greeks is not however so definite, though it may be clearly shown that in each case the year was marked by a certain period of cold and darkness, indicating theArctic, origin of the ancient calendar. Speaking of the ancient Celtic year Prof. Rhys observes, “Now as the Celts were in the habit formerly of counting winters, and of giving precedence in their reckoning to night and winter over day and summer, I should argue that the last day of the year in the Irish story of Diarmait’s death meant the eve of November of All-Halloween, the night before the Irish Samhain, and known in Welsh as Nos Galan-gaeaf, or the Night of the winter Calends. But there is no occasion to rest on this alone, for we have the evidence of Cormac’s Glossary that the month before the be ginning of winter was the last month, so that the first day ofthe first month of winter was also the first day of the year.”*( Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, p. 514) Various superstitious customs are then alluded to, showing that the eve of November was considered to be the proper time for prophecy or the appearance of goblins; and the Professor then closes the discussion regarding the above-mentioned last day of the Celtic year with the remark that “It had been fixed upon as the time of all others, when the Sun-god whose power had been gradually falling off since the great feast associated with him on the first of August, succumbed to his enemies, the powers of darkness and winter. It was their first hour of triumph after an interval of subjection, and the popular imagination pictured them stalking aboard with more than ordinary insolence and aggressiveness; and if it comes to giving individuality and form to the deformity of darkness, to describe it as a sow, black or grisly, with neither ears nor tail, is not perhaps very readily surpassed as an instance of imaginative aptitude.”( Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, p. 516-517) The shows that the ancient Celtic year closed with the season of autumn and the beginning of winter which corresponded with the last day of October, or the eve of November, and was marked by festivals which indicated the victory of darkness over light. As regards the middle of the year or summer in the Celtic traditions, the same authority further informs us that “The Lammas fairs and meetings forming the Lugnassad in ancient Ireland marked the victorious close of the sun’s contest with the powers of darkness and death, when the warmth and light of that luminary’s rays, after routing the colds and blights, were fast bringing the crops to maturity. This, more mythologically expressed, was represented as the final crushing of Fomori and Fir Bolg, the death of their king and the nullifying of their malignant spells, and as the triumphant return of Lug with peace and plenty to marry the maiden Erinn and to enjoy a well-earned banquet, at which the fairy host of dead ancestors was probably not forgotten. Marriages were solemnized on the auspicious occasion; and no prince, who failed to be present on the last day of the fair, durst look forward to prosperity during the coming year. The Lugnassad was the great event of the summer half of the year, which extended form the calends of May to the calends of winter. The Celtic year was more thermometric than astronomical, and the Lugnassad was so to say its summer solstice, whereas the longest day was, so far as I have been able to discover, of no special account.”( Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, p. 418-19) The great feast of the Lugnassad thus marked the middle of the year or summer, and it was held at the beginning of August. Therefore, “the First of May must, according to Celtic ideas, have been the right season for the birth of the summer sun-god”;( Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, p. 546)and this is confirmed by the story of Gwin and Gwythur, who fought for the same damsel, and between whom peace was made on the condition that they were to fight for the damsel “on the Calends of May every year thenceforth till the Day of Doom, and he who should prove victorious on the Day of Doom was to take the Damsel to wife.” ( Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, p. 562) This is interpreted by Prof. Rhys to mean that “the Sun-god would recover his bride at the beginning of summer after his antagonist had gained possession of her at the beginning of winter;”( Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, p.460) and he compares the legend to the story of Persephone, daughter of Zeus carried away by Pluto, who was, however, able to retain her at his side only for six months in the year. We might also cite in this connection the legend of Demeter or Mother Earth, who is said to rejoice for six months in the presence of Proserpine, the green herb, her daughter, and for six months regret her absence in dark abodes beneath the earth. The ancient Celtic year thus seems to nave been divided into two halves, one representing the six summer months and the other, which commenced on the eve of November, the six months of winter darkness. But what is still more remarkable is that just as the Ṛig-Veda gives us the exact date of the commencement of the battle between Indra and Shambara, so Celtic myths record the exact date of the first battle of Moytura and also of the fight between Labraid of the Swift Hand on the Sword, king of an, Irish Hades, whom Cuchulainn goes to assist, and his enemies called the Men of Fidga. They were fought on the eve of November, “when the Celtic year began with the ascendancy of the powers of darkness.”* (Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, p. 562.) Prof. Rhys further points out that the ancient Norse year was similar in character. The great feast of the Norsemen occupied three days called the Winter Nights and began on the Saturday falling on or between the 11th and the 18th of October; and according to Dr. Vigfusson this feast marked the beginning of the ancient year of the Norsemen. The old Norse year thus appears to have been shorter by a few days than the Celtic one; but Prof. Rhys accounts for this difference on the ground “that winter, and therefore the year commences earlier inScandinavia than in the continental centre from which the Celts dispersed themselves.”(Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, p. 676).

            As regards the ancient Greek calendar, Prof. Rhys has shown that the old year ended with the festival of Apaturia and the new one began with the Chalceia, an ancient feast in honor of Hephæstus and Athene, the exact date being the ènu kai nea of the month of Pyanepsion, that is, approximately the last day of October. Prof. Rhys then compares the Celtic feast of the Lugnassad with the Greek festival named Panathenæa, and the feast on the Calends of May with the Athenian Thargelia, and concludes his comparison of the Celtic and the Greek calendar by observing that “a year which was common to Celts with Greeks is not unlikely to have once been common to them with some or all other branches of the Aryan family.” (Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, p. 521)

            This shows that the ancient Aryan races of Europe knew of six months’ day and six months’ night, and their calendars were the modifications of this Arctic division of the year. Comparative philology, according to Dr. Schrader, leads us to the same conclusion. Speaking of the ancient division of the year he says: — “Nearly everywhere in the chronology of the individual peoples a division of the year into two parts can be traced. This finds linguistic expression in the circumstance that the terms for summer, spring, and winter have parallel suffix formations. As in the primeval period jhi-m and sem existed side by side, so in Zend zima and hama correspond to each other, in Armenian amarn andjmern, in Teutonic sum-ar and wint-ar, in Celtic gam and sam, in Indian vasanta and hemanta. There is absolutely no instance, in which one and the same language shows identity of suffixes in the names of the three seasons of the year. In Slavonic, also, the year is divided into two principal divisions, summer (leto) and winter (zima); and finally evident traces of old state of things are not wanting in Greek and Latin.”* (Schrader’s Prehistoric Antiquities of Aryan Peoples, translated by Jevons, Part IV, ch. VI, p. 302.)Dr. Schrader further remarks that the separate conceptions of winter and summer were combined in one whole even in primitive times; but there is no word for a year common to all or most of the Aryan languages, and it is not unlikely that the names of summer or winter were used to denote the return of the seasons more frequently than the conception of winter and summer combined into one whole. As the length of summer, or the period of sunshine, as contrasted with the period of darkness, varied from six to twelve months in the Arctic regions the conception of a year of twelve months was perhaps less suited for practical reckoning in the primeval home than the conception of so many months’ summer or so many months’ winter taken singly, and this explains why in the Ṛig-Veda we have the expression “mânus ḥâ yugâ and kṣhapaḥ” to denote the whole year.

            In discussing the legend of the Navagvas and the Dashagvas we have shown that the numerals incorporated in their names must be interpreted as referring to the number of months during which they completed their annual sacrifices, and that Prof. Lignana’s view that they refer to the months of pregnancy is not only improbable but opposed to the express Vedic texts which tell us that the Navagvas and the Dashagvas completed their sacrifices in ten months. Let us now see if there are corresponding personages in other Aryan mythologies. Prof. Lignana has pointed out the resemblance between the Navagvas and the Novemsides of the Romans. The comparison is no doubt happy, but there is nothing in the cult of the Novemsides which gives us a clue to the original meaning of the word. We know nothing beyond the fact that Novemsides (also spelt Novemsiles) were, certain Latin gods, who according to the double etymology (novam, nine or novus, new) were taken for nine Muses, or for gods newly introduced, as after the conquest of a place in contrast with the old gods of the country. But the Celtic tradition of the Maid of Nine Forms is much more explicit, inasmuch as it is distinctly connected with the sun-hero Cuchulainn. The story is thus narrated by Rhys: Conchobar had a passing fair daughter called Fedelm of the nine forms, for she had so many fair aspects, each of which was more beautiful, as we are told, than the others; and when “Cuchulainn had, at the news of the approach of the enemy from the west, advanced with his father to the frontier of the realm, he suddenly hastened away in the evening to a place of secret meeting, where he knew Fedelm to have a bath got ready for him, in order to prepare him for the morrow and his first encounter with the invading army.”* (Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, pp. 630-1) This reminds us of the assistance rendered by the Navagvas and the Dashagvas to Indra by means of Sonia sacrifices performed by them and which sacrifices are said to have invigorated Indra and prepared him for his fight with the powers of darkness, represented by Vṛitra, Vala, Shambara and other demons.

The Maid of Nine Forms is therefore a Celtic paraphrase of the Nine-going sacrifices in the Ṛig-Veda. Prof. Rhys considers Fedelm to be a sort of Athene with nine forms of beauty, and refers to the story of Athene weaving a peplos for her favorite Hêrakles, or causing springs of warm water to gush forth from the ground, to supply him at the end of the day with a refreshing bath.* (Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, pp. 378-9.) But this comparison does not explain why there should be nine forms of beauty in either case. The mystery is, however, cleared up, if we suppose these legends to refer to the nine months of sunshine at the end of which the setting sun-god is refreshed or invigorated for his struggle with the demons of darkness by the acts of or services of the Nine-going sacrificers or the Maid of Nine Forms. In the Norse literature we are told that Thor, the son of Earth, slays the World-dragon, walks nine paces and dies of the venom of the Serpent.”( Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, pp. 616) If the slaying of the dragon be understood, as remarked by Prof. Rhys, to mean the conquest of the Sun-hero over the powers of darkness and the death of Thor be taken to represent the sinking of the summer-sun below the horizon, we have here a clear statement that Thor, the Sun-hero, walked nine paces during the time that intervened between the end of winter and the end of summer. These nine paces could not be nine days or nine years; and there is therefore no alternative but to hold that the legend refers to the nine months’ life of the Sun-god before he succumbed to the powers of darkness. The Avestic story of Vafra, or, according to Spiegel, Vifra Navâza (Yt. V, 61) belongs, I think, to the same class. He is said to have been flung up in the air, in the shape of a bird by Thraêtaona and was flying for three days and three nights towards his own house, but could not turn down. At the end of the third night when the beneficent dawn came dawning up, lie prayed unto Ardvi Sûra Anâhita to help him, promising to offer Haomas and meat by the drink of the river Rangha. Ardvi Sûra Anâhita listening to his prayer is. then said to have brought him to his house safe and unhurt. Vifra Navâza in this legend is very likely Vipra Navagva of the Ṛig-Veda. We have seen that the Navagvas and seven vipras are mentioned together in the Ṛig-Veda (VI, 22, 2) and that the Ashvins, who are called vipra-vâhasâ in (V, 74, 7), are said to have resided for three nights in the distant region. It is not unlikely, therefore, that the story of the Navagvas, who go to help Indra in the world of darkness after completing their sacrificial session of nine months, may have been combined with the story of the Ashvins in the Avestic legend of Vifra Navâza, Sanskrit Vipra being changed into Avestic Vifra and Navagva into Navâza

            The above legends from the Greek, Celtic and Norse literatures show that a long winter-darkness was not unknown to the ancestors of the Aryan races in Europe, who have preserved distinct reminiscences of a year of ten or six months’ sun-shine, and that the Navagvas and the Dashagvas of the Ṛig-Veda have again their parallels in the mythology of other Aryan races, though the resemblance may not be as obvious in the one as in the other case. A year of six months’ or ten months’ sunshine necessarily implies a long continuous day and a long continuous night, and distinct references to these Arctic characteristics of day and night are found in Norse and Slavonic legends. Thus the Norse Sun-god Balder is said to have dwelt in a place in heaven called Breidablik or Broadgleam, the most blessed of all lands, where nought unclean or accursed could abide. Upon this Prof. Rhys observes, “It is remarkable that Balder had a dwelling place in the heavens, and this seems to refer to the Arctic summer when the sun prolongs his stay above the horizon. The pendant to the picture would naturally be his staying as long in the nether world.” This corresponds exactly with the Vedic description of the sun’s unyoking his carriage and making a halt in the mid of the heaven, discussed in the sixth chapter. The story of three brothers in the Slavonic literature also points out to the same conclusion. We are told that “Once there was an old couple who had three sons. Two of them had their wits about them, but the third, Ivan, was a simpleton. Now in the land in which Ivan lived, there was never any day but always night.

This was a snake’s doing. Well, Ivan undertook to kill that snake. Then came a third snake with twelve heads, Ivan killed it and destroyed the heads and immediately there was light throughout the whole land.”*( Poor’s Comparative Mythology, p. 390) This reminds one of the story of Trita in the Ṛig-Veda previously described. Trita’s abode is said to be in the distant region, and we have interpreted it to mean the nether world of darkness, an interpretation which amongst others is fully borne out by the story of Ivan and his two brothers. But the dark power takes a distinctive Russian appearance in the awful figure of Koshchei, the deathless, — a fleshless skeleton who squeezes heroes to death in his bony arms. He carries off a princess; after seven years the hero reaches his under-ground palace and is hidden; but is discovered by Koshchei who typifies winter in this case. All these legends clearly indicate a dark winter of some months’ duration, or the long winter-night of the Arctic regions. There are other stories in which the Sun-hero is said to have been detained in a place of darkness; but it is not necessary to refer to them in this place. For comparison I shall only refer briefly to a legend in the Finnish mythology, which, though not Aryan in origin, may yet serve to throw some light on the subject under consideration. In the mythology of the Finns, the Dawn is called Koi and “Koi, the Dawn (masc.), and Ammarik, the Gloaming (fem.), are said to have been entrusted by Vanna-issa, the Old Father, with lighting and extinguishing every morning and evening the torch of the day. As a reward for their faithful services Vanna-issa would allow them to get married. But they preferred to remain bride and bride-groom, and Vanna-issa had nothing more to say.

He allowed them, however, to meet at midnight during four weeks in summer. At that time Ammarik hands the dying torch to Koi, who revives it with his breath.”* (Max Müller’s Contributions to the Science of Mythology, pp. 267-8) If this legend has any meaning it signifies the cessation of extinguishing the torch of the day during four weeks in summer. Koi and Ammarik both leave their places and arrange to meet at midnight but without extinguishing the torch. This means a long day of four weeks, and as it must have a long night of four weeks to match it the story points out to a period of eleven months’ sun-shine, and an Arctic night of four weeks.

            From the legends mentioned, or referred to, or described above, it may be easily seen that many traces of the Arctic calendar are still discernible in the mythology of the western Aryan races like Celts, Teutons, Lets, Slavs, Greeks and Romans. Long dawns or a number of dawns, long days, long nights, dark winters, are all alluded to more or less explicitly in these myths, though none of these legends refers directly to the position of the primeval home and the cause of its destruction. But this omission or defect is removed by the evidence contained in the Veda and the Avesta; and when the European legends are viewed in the light of the Indo-Iranian traditions they clearly point to the existence of a primeval home near the North Pole. There are a number of other legends in the Celtic and Teutonic literatures which describe the victory of sun-hero over the demons of darkness every year, similar in character to the victory of Indra over Vṛitra, or to the achievements of the Ashvins, the physicians of the gods. Thus in the Norse mythology, Hodur, the blind god of winter, is represented as killing Balder or Baldur, or the god of summer, and Vali the son of Odin and Rind is said to have avenged his brother’s death afterwards. The encounters of Cuchulainn, the Celtic Sun-god, with his enemies, the Fomori or the Fir Bolg, the Irish representatives of the powers of darkness, are of the same character. It may also be remarked that according to Prof. Rhys the world of waters and the world of darkness and the dead are identical in Celtic myths, in the same way as the world of water, the abode of Vṛitra and the world of darkness are shown to be in the Vedic mythology. The strange custom of couvade, by which the whole population of Ireland is described as being laid up in confinement or indisposed so as to be unable to defend their country against the invasion of Ailill and Medle with their Fig Bolg, excepting Cuchulainn and his father, again indicates, according to Prof. Rhys, a sort of decline in the power of gods like that witnessed in the case of the winter-sun; in other words, it was an indisposition or inactivity of the same sort which amounts in the Norse Edda to nothing less than actual death of the Anses at the hands of the powers of evil. This temporary affliction or the indisposition of the gods forms the subject of many other legends. But we have no space to narrate all of them, and shall, therefore, only quote here the conclusion, which Prof. Rhys has been forced to adopt, regarding the meaning of these myths after a critical examination of the different Celtic and Teutonic legends. Speaking of Gods, Demons and Heroes, in the last lecture of his learned work, he thus sums up his views regarding the myths describing the encounters between Gods or Sun-heroes and the powers of darkness: —

            “All that we have thus far found with regard to the contest of the gods and their allies against the powers of evil and theirs, would seem to indicate that they were originally regarded as yearly struggles. This appears to be the meaning of the fore-knowledge as to the final battle of Moytura, and as to the exact date of the engagement on the Plain of Fidga in which Cuchulainn assists Labraid of the Swift Hand on the sword, a kind of Celtic Zeus, or Mars-Jupiter, as the ruler of an Elysium in the other world. It was for a similar reason that the northern Sibyl could predict that, after the Anses had been slain by Swart, aided by the evil brood, Balder would come to reign, when all would be healed, and the Anses would meet again in the Field of Ida. Nor can the case have been materially different with the Greek gods, as proved by the allusion to the prophecy about the issue of the war with the giants. And this was not all; for we are told that the Cretans represented Zeus as born and bred and also buried in their island, a view sometimes formally regarded as confirming the character ascribed to them for lying; but that deserves no serious consideration, and the Cretans in their mysteries are supposed to have represented the god going through the stages of his history every year. A little beyond the limits of the Greek world a similar idea assumed a still more remarkable form, namely, among the Phrygians, who are said by Plutarch to have believed their god (like the Purâṇic Viṣhṇu) to sleep during the winter and resume his activity during summer. The same author also states that the Paphlagonians were of opinion that the gods were shut up in a prison during winter and let loose in summer. Of these peoples, the Phrygians at least appear to have been Aryan, and related by no means distantly to the Greek; but nothing could resemble the Irish couvade of the Ultonion heroes more closely than the notion of the Phrygian god hibernating. This, in its turn, is not to be severed from the drastic account of the Zeus of the Greek Olympus reduced by Typho to a sinewless mass and thrown for a time into a cave in a state of utter helplessness. Thus we seem to be directed to the north as the original home of the Aryan nations; and there are other indications to the same effect, such as Woden’s gold ring Draupnir, which I have taken to be symbolic of the ancient eight-day week: he places it on Balder’s pile, and with him it disappears for a while into the nether world, which would seem to mean the cessation for a time of the vicissitude of day and night, as happens in midwinter within the Arctic Circle. This might be claimed as exclusively Icelandic, but not if one can show traces, as I have attempted, of the same myth in Ireland. Further, a sort of complement to it is supplied by the fact that Cuchulainn, the Sun-hero, is made to fight several days and nights without having any sleep, which though fixed at the wrong season of the year in the epic tale in its present form, may probably be regarded as originally referring to the sun remaining above the horizon continuously for several days in summer. Traces of the same idea betray themselves in Balder’s son Forseti or the Judge, who according to a passage in old Norse literature, sits long hours at his court settling all causes in his palace ofGlitnir in the skies. These points are mentioned as part of a hypothesis I have been forced to form for the interpretation of certain features of Aryan mythology; and that hypothesis, to say the least of it, will not now be considered so wild as it would have been a few years ago; for the recent researches of the students of language and ethnology have profoundly modified their views, and a few words must, at this point, be devoted to the change that has come over the scene.”( Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, pp. 631-3.)

            Prof. Rhys then goes on to briefly describe how the views of mythologists and philologists regarding the primeval home of the Aryan race have been modified by the recent discoveries in Geology, Archeology and Craniology, and how the site of that home has been shifted from the plains of Central Asia to the northern parts of Germany or even to Scandinavia not only on ethnological but also on philological grounds. As we have discussed the subject previously, we omit this portion of Prof. Rhys’ remarks and quote the concluding paragraph which runs as follows: —

            “Thus the voice of recent research is raised very decidedly in favor of Europe, though there is no complete unanimity as to the exact portion of Europe, to regard as the early home of the Aryans; but the competition tends to lie between North Germany and Scandinavia, especially the south of Sweden. This last would probably do well enough as the country in which the Aryans may have consolidated and organized themselves before beginning to send forth their excess of population to conquer the other lands now possessed by nations speaking Aryan languages. Nor can one forget that all the great states of modern Europe, except that of the sick man, trace their history back to the conquest of the Norsemen who set out from the Scandinavian land, which Jordanis proudly calls officina gentium and vagina nationum.  But I doubt whether the teachings of evolution may not force us to trace them still further towards the North: in any case, the mythological indications to which your attention has been called, point, if I am not mistaken, to some spot within the Arctic Circle, such, for example, as the region where Norse legend placed the Land of Immortality, somewhere in the north of Finland and the neighborhood of the White Sea. There would, perhaps, be no difficulty in the way of supposing them to have thence in due time descended into Scandinavia, settling, among other places, at Upsala, which has all the appearance of being a most ancient site, lying as it does on a plain dotted with innumerable burial mounds of unknown antiquity. This, you will bear in mind, has to do only with the origin of the early Aryans, and not with that of the human race generally; but it would be no fatal objection to the view here suggested, if it should be urged that the mythology of nations beside the Aryans, such as that of the Paphlagonians, in case of their not being Aryan, point likewise to the north; for it is not contended that the Aryans may be the only people of northern origin. Indeed, I may add that a theory was, not long ago, propounded by a distinguished French savant, to the effect that the entire human race originated on the shores of the Polar Sea at a time when the rest of the northern hemisphere was too hot to be inhabited by man. M. de Saporta, for that is the learned writer’s name, explains himself in clear and forcible terms; but how far his hypothesis may satisfy the other students of this fascinating subject I cannot say. It may, however, be observed in passing that it need not disconcert even the most orthodox of men, for it supposes all the races of mankind traceable to a single non-simian origin, and the Bible leaves it an open question where exactly and when the Garden of Eden flourished.” (Rhys’ Hibbert Lectures, pp. 636-7.)

            I have very little to add to the views expressed in the above passages; in fact Prof. Rhys has left us little to be done so far as Celtic and Teutonic myths are concerned.

The way in which he proceeds to analyze the legends and show that they all point to a primeval home in the Arctic regions is at once interesting and instructive. He first clears the ground by ascribing the different prophecies occurring in the legends not to any fore-knowledge on the part of the poet, but to the simple fact that the events spoken of were of annual occurrence, and as they were known to recur regularly it was not difficult to adopt the language of prophecy and predict the happening of these events in future. He then collects a number of facts which go to prove that gods and heroes were afflicted with some disability of distress at certain intervals of time, which rendered them incapable to carry on the annual struggle with the powers of evil and darkness. The only physical phenomena corresponding to such distress of the solar hero, or the sun, are his daily setting, the decay of his powers in winter and his disappearing below the horizon for some months in the Polar regions. As the struggle between the Sun-god and his enemies is, as stated above, determined to be annual, the daily setting of the sun does not come within the range of the possible explanations of the temporary distress of the sun-god. Out of the two remaining physical phenomena, the decay of sun’s power in winter would have answered the purpose, had there been no legends or myths which indicated the cessation of the vicissitude of day and night for some time. I have pointed out before how Prof. Max Müller, who has followed the same method of interpretation in his discussion of the achievements of the Ashvins, has failed to grasp the real meaning of the Ashvins’ legends by disregarding the statements which distinctly speak of the protégés of the Ashvins as dwelling or laboring in darkness. Prof. Rhys is more cautious in this respect, and is anxious to account for all the incidents in the legends if they could possibly be accounted for on any theory. The result is that he has been gradually led, or we might even say forced, to adopt the theory of the ancient Arctic home of the Aryan people inasmuch as all the different incidents in the legends under consideration can be accounted for only by this theory. In short, Prof. Rhys has this book in regard to the Vedic and Avestic traditions. This has considerably lightened our labor in regard to the examination of Celtic and Teutonic myths from our point of view, and our thanks are due to Prof. Rhys for the same. But we feel sure that if the Vedic evidence and facts stated and discussed in the foregoing chapters had been known to the learned Professor before he wrote his work, he would have expressed himself still more confidently regarding the inference to be drawn from the traces of Arctic origin discernible in Teutonic myths; but even as it is, the value of his testimony stands very high in the decision of the question before us. It is the testimony of an expert given after a critical and careful examination of all Celtic and Teutonic Myths, and after comparing them with similar Greek traditions; and when this testimony falls in so completely with the conclusions we have drawn from an independent consideration of the Vedic and Avestic myths, our results may, so to say, be regarded as doubly proved. It has already been shown that the results of comparative philology also support, or, at any rate, are not inconsistent with our conclusions. The theory of the Asiatic home may be said to have been now abandoned on linguistic or etymological grounds, but it has not yet been proved that the Neolithic Aryan races of Europe were autochthonus in the countries where their remains are now found. Therefore the question of the original home of the Aryan people is still an open question, and we are free to draw any conclusion regarding the ancient home from a legitimate consideration of the traditional evidence before us. Prof. Rhys has well described the situation by observing that the teachings of evolution may force us to look for the original home still farther north in the Arctic regions. In fact we have to go to a latitude which will give us seven months’ sunshine, or a hundred nights’ continuous darkness, or thirty days’ continuous dawn. The question whether the home of other nations, beside the Aryan, can be traced to the North Pole, has been ably discussed by Dr. Warren in his Paradise Found, or the Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole. It is an important question from an anthropological point of view; but its very comprehensiveness precludes us from collecting evidence from the traditional literatures of the different human races living on the surface of this earth. It is true that we sometimes derive help from the discussion of the broader questions at first; but for all practical purposes it is always desirable to split up the inquiry into different sections, and when each section has been thoroughly investigated to combine the results of the different investigators and see what conclusions are common to all. Our inquiry of the original Aryan home is, therefore, not only not inconsistent with the general theory about the, cradle of the human race at the North Pole, but a necessary complement to it; and it matters little whether it is undertaken as an independent inquiry as we have done, or as a part of the general investigation. Anyhow ours is a limited task, namely, to prove that the original home of the Aryan people was situated in the Arctic regions before the last Glacial epoch and that the oldest ancestors of the Aryan race had to abandon it owing to its destruction by ice and snow of the Glacial period. The Vedic and the Avestic passages, quoted in the previous chapters, directly point to such a home in primeval times, and we now see that the testimony of scholars, like Prof. Rhys, who have independently examined the Celtic, Teutonic and other mythologies of the European branches of the Aryan race, fully bears out the conclusion we have deduced from the Indo-Iranian traditions. We have also seen that our view is supported by the latest scientific researches, and is not inconsistent with the results of comparative philology. We may, therefore, take it as established that the original home of the Aryan people was in the far north, in regions round about the North Pole, and that we have correctly interpreted the Vedic and the Avestic traditions which had long remained misinterpreted or misunderstood.

CHAPTER XIII

THE BEARING OF OUR RESULTS ON

THE HISTORY OF PRIMITIVE ARYAN

CULTURE AND RELIGION

Proofs of the theory of the Arctic home summed up — They clearly indicate a Polar home, but the exact spot in the Arctic regions, that is, north of Europe or Asia, still undeterminable — An Arctic home possible only in inter-Glacial times according to geology — Ancient Vedic chronology and calendar examined — The interval between the commencement of the Post-Glacial era and the Orion period cannot, according to it, be so great as 80,000 years — Supported by the moderate estimate of the American geologists — Purâṇic chronology of yugas, manvantaras and kalpas — Rangâchârya’s and Aiyer’s views thereon — Later Purâṇic system evolved out of an original cycle of four yugas of 10,000 years, since the last deluge — The theory of “divine years” unknown to Manu and Vyâsa — Adopted by later writers who could not believe that they lived in the Kṛita age — The original tradition of 10,000 years since the last deluge fully in accord with Vedic chronology — And also with the American estimate of 8,000 B.C. for the beginning of the Post-Glacial period — All prove the existence of a Polar Aryan home before 8,000 B.C. — Trustworthiness of the ancient traditions and the method of preserving them — The theory of the Polar origin of the whole human race not inconsistent with the theory of the Arctic Aryan home — Current views regarding primitive Aryan culture and religion examined — Primitive Aryan man and his civilization cannot now be treated as Post-Glacial — Certain destruction of the primeval civilization and culture by the Ice Age — Short-comings or defects in the civilization of the Neolithic Aryan races in Europe must, therefore, be ascribed to a postdiluvian relapse into barbarism — Life and calendar in the inter-Glacial Arctic home – Devayâna and Pitriyâna and the deities worshipped during the period — The ancient sacrifices of the Aryan race — The degree of civilization reached by the undivided Aryans in their Arctic home — The results of Comparative Philology stated — The civilization disclosed by them must be taken to be the minimum or the lowest, that can be predicated of the undivided Aryans — The culture of the undivided Aryans higher than the culture of the Stone or the Metal age — Use of metal coins among them highly probable — Beginnings of the Aryan language, or the differentiation of human races according to color or language still untraceable — The origin of Aryan man and religion lost in geological antiquity — Theological views regarding the origin and character of the Vedas summarized — Differently supported by writers on the different schools of philosophy — Patanjali’s and Vyâsa’s view that the Vedas were lost in the last deluge and repromulgated in substance, if not in form, at the beginning of the new age — The four periods into which the Post-Glacial era may be divided on astronomical grounds — Compared with the characteristics of the four yugas given in the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa — Theological and historical views regarding the origin &c. of the Vedas stated in parallel columns and compared — Vedic texts, showing that the subject matter of the hymns is ancient though the language may be new, cited — Vedic deities and their exploits all said to be ancient — Improbability of Dr. Muir’s suggested reconciliation — Vedas, or rather Vedic religion, shown to be inter-Glacial in substance though post-Glacial in form — Concluding remarks.

            We have now completed our investigation of the question of the original home of the ancestors of the Vedic Aryans from different stand-points of view. Our arguments, it will be seen, are not based on the history of culture, or on facts disclosed by linguistic paleontology. The evidence, cited in the foregoing chapters, mainly consists of direct passages from the Vedas and the Avesta, proving unmistakably that the poets of the Ṛig-Veda were acquainted with the climatic conditions witnessible only in the Arctic regions. and that the principal Vedic deities, such as the revolving Dawn, the Waters captivated by Vṛitra, the Ashvins the rescuers of the afflicted gods and Sûrya, Indra the deity of a hundred sacrifices, Vishnu the vast-strider, Varuṇa the lord of night and the ocean, the Âditya brothers or the seven monthly sun-gods, Tṛita or the Third, and others, are clothed with attributes which clearly betray their Arctic origin. In other words, all the differential, mentioned in the third chapter as characteristic of the Polar and Circum-Polar regions, are met with in the Ṛig-Veda in such a way as to leave no doubt regarding the conclusion to be drawn from them. A day or a night of six months, and a long continuous dawn of several days’ duration with its revolving splendors, not to mention the unusually long Arctic day and night or a year of less than twelve months’ sunshine, were all known to the Vedic bards, and have been described by them not mythologically or metaphorically but directly in plain and simple words, which, though misinterpreted so long, can, in the light thrown upon the question by recent scientific researches, be now rightly read and understood. In fact the task, which I set to myself, was to find out such passages, and show how in the absence of the true key to their meaning, they have been subjected to forced construction, or ignored and neglected, by Vedic scholars both Indian and foreign, ancient and modern. I do not mean, however, to underrate, on that account, the value or the importance of the labors of Indian Nairuktas like Yâska, or commentators like Sâyaṇa. Without their aid we should have, it is readily admitted, been able to do little in the field of the Vedic interpretation; and I am fully aware of the service they have rendered to this cause. There is no question that they have done their best in elucidating the meaning of our sacred books; and their claims on the grateful remembrance of their services by future generations of scholars will ever remain unchallenged. But if the Vedas are really the oldest records of our race, who can deny that in the light of the advancing knowledge regarding primitive humanity, we may still discover in these ancient records facts and statements which may have escaped the attention of older scholars owing to the imperfect nature, in their days, of those sciences which are calculated to throw further light on the habits and environments of the oldest ancestors of our race? There is, therefore, nothing strange if some of the passages in the Ṛig-Veda and the Avesta disclose to us ideas which the ancient commentators could not and did not perceive in them; and I would request the reader to bear this in mind in comparing the interpretations and explanations proposed by me in the foregoing chapters with the current interpretations of these passages by eastern or western Vedic scholars.

            But our conclusions do not rest merely on the interpretation of passages which, if rightly construed, disclose climatic characteristics peculiar to the Arctic regions; though this evidence is, by itself, sufficient to prove our hypothesis. We have seen that in the sacrificial literature of the Vedic people as well as in their mythology there are many indications which point to the same conclusion; and these are fully corroborated by the ancient traditions and legends in the Avesta and also by the mythologies of the European branches of the Aryan race. A sacrificial session of ten months held by the Dashagvas, or an annual sattra of the same duration, compared with the oldest Roman year ending in December or the tenth month, are the principal instances on the point; and they have been fully discussed in the foregoing chapters. I have also shown that the knowledge of the half-year-long day or night is not confined to the traditions of the eastern Aryas, but is common also to the European branches of the Aryan race. The tradition preserved in the Vendidad about the ancient Iranian Paradise in the far north, so that a year was equal to a day to the inhabitants thereof, and its destruction by snow and ice burying the land under a thick ice-cap, again affords the most striking and cogent proof of the theory we have endeavored to prove in these pages. Thus if the traditions of the western Aryas point out, according to Prof. Rhys, to Finland or the White Sea as the original home of the Aryan people, the Vedic and the Avestic traditions carry us still farther to the north; for a continuous dawn of thirty days is possible only within a few degrees of the North Pole. But though the latitude of the original home can be thus ascertained more or less definitely, yet there is unfortunately nothing in these traditions which will enable us to determine the longitude of the place, or, in other words, whether the original home of the Aryan race was to the north of Europe or Asia. But considering the fact that the traditions of the original Polar home are better preserved in the sacred books of the Brahmins and the Parsis, it is not unlikely that the primeval home was located to the north of Siberia rather than to the north of Russia or Scandinavia. It is, however, useless to speculate on the point without further proof. The Vedic and the Avestic evidence clearly establish the existence of a primeval Polar home, the climate of which was mild and temperate in ancient times, before it was invaded by the Glacial epoch; and with this result we must rest content, until we get sufficient new materials to ascertain the exact position of the Aryan home within the Arctic regions.

            We commenced the book with a summary of the results of the latest geological and archeological researches regarding the history of primitive humanity and the invasion of northern Europe and Asia by a series of glacial epochs in the Quarternary era. This discussion was prefixed to the book with the object of clearing up certain misapprehensions regarding the early history of our planet based on knowledge derived from older geological works, when man was believed to be postglacial; and it will now be seen that our theory of the primeval Arctic home of the Aryan races is in perfect accord with the latest and most approved geological facts and opinions. A primeval Arctic home would have been regarded an impossibility, had not science cleared the ground by establishing that the antiquity of man goes back to the Tertiary era, that the climate of the Polar regions was mild and temperate in inter-glacial times, and that it was rendered cold and inclement by the advent of the Glacial epoch. We can now also understand why attempts to prove the existence of an Arctic home by discovering references to severe winter and cold in the Vedas did not succeed in the past. The winter in the primeval home was originally, that is, in inter-glacial times, neither severe nor inclement, and if such expressions as “a hundred winters” (shatam himâḥ) are found in the Vedic literature, they cannot be taken for reminiscences of severe cold winters in the original home; for the expression came into use probably because the year in the original home closed with a winter characterized by the long Arctic night. It was the advent of the Ice Age that destroyed the mild climate of the original home and converted it into an ice-bound land unfit for the habitation of man. This is well expressed in the Avesta which describes the Airyana Vaêjo as a happy land subsequently converted by the invasion of Angra Mainyu into a land of severe winter and snow. This correspondence between the Avestic description of the original home and the result of the latest geological researches, at once enables us to, fix the age of the Arctic home, for it is now a well-settled scientific fact that a mild climate in the Polar regions was possible only in the inter-Glacial and not in the post-Glacial times.

            But according to some geologists 20,000 or even 80,000 years have passed since the close of the last Glacial epoch; and as the oldest date assigned to the Vedic hymns does not go beyond 4500 B.C., it may be contended that the traditions of the Ice Age, or of the inter-Glacial home, cannot be supposed to have been accurately preserved by oral transmission for thousands of years that elapsed between the commencement of the post-Glacial era and the oldest date of the Vedic hymns. It is, therefore, necessary to examine the point a little more closely in this place. In my Orion or Researches into the antiquity of the Vedas, I have shown that while the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ and the Brâhmaṇas begin the Nakṣhatras with the Kṛittikâs or the Pleiades, showing that the vernal equinox then coincided with the aforesaid asterism (2500 B.C.), the Vedic literature contains traces of Mṛiga or Orion being once the first of the Nakṣhatras and the hymns of the Ṛig-Veda, or at least many of them, which are undoubtedly older than the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, contain reference to this period, that is, about 4500 B.C. approximately It is also pointed out that there are faint traces of the same equinox being once in the constellation of Punarvasû, presided over by Aditi, which was possible in about 6,000 B.C. I have in my later researches tried to push back this limit by searching for the older zodiacal positions of the vernal equinox in the Vedic literature, but I have not found any evidence of the same. My attention was, however, directed more and more to passages containing traces of an Arctic calendar and an Arctic home, and I have been gradually led to infer therefrom that at about 5000 or 6000 B.C., the Vedic Aryas had settled on the plains of Central Asia, and that at the time the raditions about the existence of the Arctic hone and its destruction by snow and ice, as well as about the Arctic origin of the Vedic deities, were definitely known to the bards of these races. In short, researches in Vedic chronology and calendar do not warrant us in placing the advent of the last Glacial epoch, which destroyed the ancient Aryan home, at a time several thousands of years previous to the Orion period; and from what has been stated in the first two chapters of the book, it will be seen that this estimate well agrees with the conclusions of American geologists, who, from an examination of the erosion of valleys and similar other well-ascertained facts, assign to the close of the last Glacial epoch a date not older than about 8000 B.C. We might even go further and say that ancient Vedic chronology and calendar furnish an independent corroboration of the moderate view of the American geologists; and when two independent lines of research unexpectedly lead us to the same result, we may very well reject, at least in the present state of our knowledge, the extravagant speculations of Croll and his followers, and, for all practical purposes, adopt the view that the last Glacial epoch closed and the post-Glacial period commenced at about 8000 B.C. From this to the Orion period is an interval of about 3000 years, and it is not at all improbable that the traditions of the ancient home should have been remembered and incorporated into hymns whose origin can be clearly traced to that period. In short, the Vedic traditions, far from being contradictory to the scientific evidence, only serve to check the extravagant estimates regarding the age of the last Glacial epoch; and if the sober view of American geologists be adopted, both geology and the traditions recorded in the ancient books of the Aryan race will be found alike to point out to a period not much older than 8000 B.C. for the commencement of the post-Glacial era and the compulsory migration of the Aryan races from their Arctic home.

            And not only Vedic but also Purâṇic chronology, properly understood, leads us to the same conclusion. According to the Purâṇas the earth and the whole universe are occasionally subjected to destruction at long intervals of time, the earth by a small and the universe by a grand deluge. Thus we are told that when the god Brahmâ is awake during his day the creation exists; but when at the end of the day he goes to sleep, the world is destroyed by a deluge, and is re-created when he awakes from his sleep and resumes his activity the next morning. Brahmâ’s evening and morning are thus synonymous with the destruction and the re-creation of the earth. A day and a night of Brahmâ are each equal to a period of time called a Kalpa, and a Kalpa is taken for a unit in measuring higher periods of time. Two Kalpas constitute a nycthemeron (day and night) of Brahmâ, and 360 × 2 = 720 Kalpas make his year, while a hundred such years constitute his life-time, at the end of which a grand deluge overtakes the whole universe including Brahmâ. Now according to the Code of Manu and the Mahâbhârata the four yugas of Kṛita, Tretâ, Dvâpara and Kali form a yuga of gods, and a thousand such yugas make a Kalpa or a day of Brahmâ of 12,000,000 years, at the end of which a deluge destroys the world. The Purâṇas, however, have adopted a different method of computation. The four yugas of Kṛita, Tretâ, Dvâpara and Kali are there said to constitute a Mahâ-yuga; 71 such Mahâ-yugas constitute a Manvantara, and 14 Manvantaras make a Kalpa, which, according to this method of counting, contains 4,320,000,000 years. The difference between the durations of a Kalpa according to these two methods is due to the fact that the years making up the four yugas of Kṛita, Tretâ, Dvâpara and Kali are considered to be divine in the latter, while they are obviously human in Manu and the Mahâbhârata. For further details the reader is referred to the late Mr. S. B. Dixit’s History of Indian Astronomy in Marâthi, Prof. Raṅgâchârya’s essay on Yugas, and Mr. Aiyer’s Chronology of Ancient India, a book, in which the question of yugas and especially that of the beginning of the Kali yuga, is subjected to a searching and exhaustive examination. The Hindu writers on astronomy seem to have adopted the same system, except Âryabhaṭṭa, who holds that 72, and not 71, Mahâyugas make a Manvantara, and that a Mâhayuga is divided into four equal parts which are termed Kṛita, Tretâ, Dvâpara and Kali. According to this chronological system, we are, at present, in the 5003rd year (elapsed) of the Kali yuga of the 28th Mahâ-yuga of the 7th (Vaivasvata) Manvantara of the current Kalpa; or, 1,972,949,003 years have, in other words, elapsed since the deluge which occurred at the beginning of the present or the Shveta-vârâha Kalpa. This estimate is, as observed by Prof. Raṅgâchârya, quite beyond the limit admitted by modern geology; and it is not unlikely that Hindu astronomers, who held the view that the sun, the moon, and all the planets were in a line at the beginning of the Kalpa, arrived at this figure by mathematically calculating the period during which the sun, the moon and all the planets made an integral number of complete revolutions round the earth. We need not, however, go into these details, which howsoever interesting are not relevant to the subject in hand. A cycle of the four yugas, viz., Kṛita, Tretâ, Dvâpara and Kali, is, it will be seen, the basis of this chronological system, and we have therefore to examine more critically what this collection of four yugas, otherwise termed a Mahâ-yuga, really signifies and whether the period of time originally denoted by it was the same as it is said to be at present.

            Prof. Raṅgâchârya and especially Mr. Aiyer have ably treated this subject in their essays, and I agree in the main with them in their conclusions. I use the words “in the main” deliberately, for though my researches have independently led me to reject the hypothesis of “divine years,” yet there are certain points which cannot, in my opinion, be definitely settled without further research. I have shown previously that the word yuga is used in the Ṛig-Veda to denote “a period of time,” and that in the phrase mânuṣhâ yugâ it cannot but be taken to denote “a month.” Yuga is, however, evidently used to denote a longer period of time in such expressions as Devânâm prathame yuge in the Ṛig-Veda, X, 72, 3; while in the Atharva Veda VIII, 2, 21, which says “We allot to thee a hundred, ten thousand years, two, three, (or) four yugas,” a yuga evidently means a period of not less than 10,000 years;*( Atharva Veda, VIII, 2, 21.) and Mr. Aiyer is right in pointing out that the omission of the word “one” in the above verse is not accidental. According to this view a yuga may be taken to have, at the longest, denoted a period of 10,000 years in the days of the Atharva Veda Saṁhitâ. Now it is found that Manu and the Mahâbhârata both assign 1000, 2000, 3000 and 4000 years to the four yugas of Kali, Dvâpara, Tretâ and Kṛita respectively. In other words, the durations of Dvâpara, Tretâ and Kṛita are obtained by doubling, trebling and quadrupling the duration of Kali; and taking into consideration that Kṛita (which Mr. Aiyer compares with Latin quatuor) means “four” in Sanskrit literature, the names of the yugas may perhaps be derived from this fact. We are, however, concerned with the duration of the four yugas, and adding up the numbers given above, we obtain 10,000 years for a cycle of four yugas, or a Mahâ-yuga according to the terminology explained above. Manu and Vyâsa, however, add to this 10,000 another period of 2,000 years, said to represent the Sandhyâ or the Sandhyâmsha periods intervening between the different yugas. Thus the Kṛita age does not pass suddenly into Tretâ, but has a period of 400 years interposed at each of its ends, while the Tretâ is protected from the contact of the preceding and the succeeding yuga by two periods of 300 years each, the Dvâpara of 200 and the Kali of 100 years. The word Sandhyâdenotes the time of the dawn in ordinary literature; and Mr. Aiyer points out that as the period of the dawn and the gloaming, or the morning and the evening twilight, is each found to extend over three out of thirty ghatis of a day, so one-tenth of the period of each yuga is assigned to its Sandhyâ or the period of transition into another yuga: and that these supplementary periods were subsequent amendments. The period of 10,000 years for a cycle of the four yugas is thus increased to 12,000, if the Sandhyâ periods are included in it, making Kṛita comprise 4800, Tretâ 3600, Dvâpara 2400 and Kali 1200 years. Now at the time of the Mahabharata or the Code of Manu, the Kali yuga had already set in; and if the yuga contained no more than 1000, or, including the Sandhyâs, 1200 ordinary years, it would have terminated about the beginning of the Christian era.* (Compare Manu, I, 69-71. In the Mahâbhârata the subject is treated in two places, once in the Shânti-Parvan, Chap. 231, and once in the Vana-Parvan, Chap. 188, V. 21-28, (Cal. Ed.). Cf. Muir O. S. T., Vol. I, 45-48.)The writers of the Purâṇas, many of which appear to have been written during the first few centuries of the Christian, era, were naturally unwilling to believe that the Kali yuga had passed away, and that they lived in the Kṛita yuga of a new Mahâ-yuga; for the Kṛita yuga meant according to them a golden age, while the times in which they lived showed signs of degeneration on all sides. An attempt was, therefore, made to extend the duration of the Kali yuga by converting 1000 (or 1200) ordinary human years thereof into as many divine years, a single divine year, or a year of the gods, being equal to 360 human years. A Vedic authority for such an interpretation was found in the text from the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, which, we have quoted and discussed previously, viz., “That which is a year is a day of the gods.” Manu and Vyâsa simply assign 1000 years to the Kali yuga. But as Manu, immediately after recording the duration of the yugas and their Sandhyâs, observes “that this period of 12,000 years is called the yuga of the gods,” the device of converting the ordinary years of the different yugas into as many divine years was, thereby, at once rendered plausible; and as people were unwilling to believe that they could be in a yuga other than the Kali, this solution of the difficulty was universally adopted, and a Kali of 1200 ordinary years was at once changed, by this ingenious artifice, into a magnificent cycle of as many divine, or 360 × 1200 = 432,000 ordinary years. The same device converted, at one stroke, the 12,000 ordinary years of a Mahâ-yuga, into as many divine, or 360 × 12,000 = 4,320,000 ordinary years, affecting in a similar way the higher cycles of time like Manvantaras and Kalpas. How the beginning of the Kali yuga was thrown back, by astronomical calculations, to 3102 B.C., when this hypothesis of “divine years” was adopted is a separate question by itself; but not being pertinent to the subject in hand we need not go into it in this place. Suffice it to say that where chronology is invested with semi-religious character, artifices or devices, like the one noticed above, are not unlikely to be used to suit the exigencies of the time; and those who have to investigate the subject from a historical and antiquarian point of view must be prepared to undertake the task of carefully sifting the data furnished by such chronology, as Prof. Raṅgâchârya and Mr. Aiyer have done in their essays referred to above.

            From a consideration of the facts stated above it will be seen that so far as the Code of Manu and the Mahâbhârata are concerned, they preserve for us a reminiscence of a cycle of 10,000 years comprising the four yugas, the Kṛita, the Tretâ, the Dvâpara and the Kali; and that the Kali yuga of one thousand years had been already set in. In other words, Manu and Vyâsa obviously speak only of a period of 10,000, or, including the Sandhyâs, of 12,000 ordinary or human (not divine) years, from the beginning of the Kṛita to the end of the Kali yuga; and it is remarkable that in the Atharva Veda we should find a period of 10,000 years apparently assigned to one yuga. It is not, therefore, unlikely that the Atharva Veda takes the Kṛita, the Tretâ, the Dvâpara and the Kali together, and uses the word yuga to denote the combined duration of all these in the passage referred to above. Now considering the fact that the Kṛita age is said to commence after a pralaya or the deluge, Manu and Vyâsa must be understood to have preserved herein an old tradition that about 10,000 years before their time (supposing them to have lived at the beginning of the Kali age of 1200 years), the new order of things commenced with the Kṛita age; or, in other words, the deluge which destroyed the old order of things occurred about 10,000 years before their time. The tradition has been very much distorted owing to devices adopted in later times to make the traditional chronology suit the circumstances of the day. But still it is not difficult to ascertain the original character of the tradition; and when we do so, we are led to conclude that the beginning of the new order of things, or, to put it more scientifically, the commencement of the current post-Glacial era was, according to this tradition, not assigned to a period older than 10,000 years before the Christian era. We have shown that researches in Vedic chronology do not allow us to carry back the date of the post-Glacial era beyond this estimate, for traditions of the Arctic home appear to have been well understood by the bards of the Ṛig-Veda in the Orion period. It is, therefore, almost certain that the invasion of the Arctic Aryan home by the last Glacial epoch did not take place at a time older than 10,000 B.C. The American geologists, we have seen, have arrived at the same conclusion on independent scientific grounds; and when the Vedic and the Purâṇic chronology indicate nearly the same time, — a difference of one or two thousand years, in such cases, does not matter much, — we may safely reject the extravagant estimates of 20,000 or 80,000 years and adopt, for all practical purposes, the view that the last Glacial epoch closed and the post-Glacial period commenced at about 8,000, or, at best, about 10,000 B.C.

            We have now to consider how the tradition about the existence of the original home at the North Pole and its destruction by snow and ice of the Glacial epoch, and other cognate reminiscences were preserved until they were incorporated into the law-book of the Mazdayasnians and the hymns of the Ṛig-Veda. That a real tradition is preserved in these books is undoubted, for we have seen that an examination of the traditionspreserved by the European branches of the Aryan rage have led Prof. Rhys to the same conclusion; and those who know the history of the preservation of our sacred books will see nothing improbable herein. In these days of writing and printing, we have no need to depend upon memory, and consequently we fail to realize what memory, kept under the strictest discipline, is capable of achieving. The whole of the Ṛig-Veda, nay, the Veda and its nine supplementary books, have been preserved by the Brahmins of India, letter for letter and accent for accent, for the last 3000 or 4000 years at least; and priests who have done so in recent times may well be credited with having faithfully preserved the traditions of the ancient home, until they were incorporated into the sacred books. These achievements of disciplined memory may appear marvelous to us at present; but, as stated above, they were looked upon as ordinary feats when memory was trusted better than books, and trained and cultivated with such special care as to be a faithful instrument for transmitting along many generations whatever men were most anxious to have remembered. It has been a fashion to cry down the class of priests who make it their sole profession to cultivate their memory by keeping it under strict discipline and transmit by its means our sacred writings without the loss of a single accent from generation to generation. They have been described, even by scholars like Yâska, as the carriers of burden, and compared by others to parrots who repeat words without understanding their meaning. But the service, which this class has rendered to the cause of ancient history and religion by preserving the oldest traditions of the race, is invaluable; and looking to the fact that a specially disciplined memory was needed for such preservation, we cannot but gratefully remember the services of those whose hereditary devotion to the task, we might say, the sacred religious task, rendered it possible for so many traditions to be preserved for thousands of years. Paṇḍits might analyze and explain the Vedic hymns more or less elaborately or correctly; but for that reason, we cannot forget that the very basis of their labors would have been lost long ago, had the institution of priests who made disciplined memory their exclusive business in life not been in existence. If the institution has outlived its necessity, — which is doubtful, for the art of writing or printing can hardly be trusted to the same extent as disciplined memory in such matters, — we must remember that religious institutions are the hardest to die in any country in the world.

            We may, therefore, safely assert that Vedic and Avestic traditions, which have been faithfully preserved by disciplined memory, and whose trustworthiness is proved by Comparative Mythology, as well as by the latest researches in Geology and Archaeology, fully establish the existence of an Arctic home of the Aryan people in inter-glacial times; and that after the destruction of this home by the last Glacial epoch the Aryan people had to migrate southwards and settle at first in the northern parts of Europe or on the plains of Central Asia at the beginning of the post-Glacial period, that is about 8000 B.C. The antiquity of the Aryan race is thus carried back to inter-glacial times, and its oldest home to regions round about the North Pole, where alone a long dawn of thirty days is possible. Whether other human races, beside the Aryan, lived with them in the circumpolar country is a question which does not fall within the purview of this book. Dr. Warren, in his Paradise Found, has cited Egyptian, Akkadian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Chinese and even Japanese traditions indicating the existence of an Arctic home of these races in ancient times; and from a consideration of all these he arrives at the conclusion that the cradle of the whole human race must be placed in the circum-polar regions, a conclusion in which he is also supported by other scholars. But, as observed by Prof. Rhys, it is no fatal objection to the view we have endeavored to prove in these pages, that the mythologies of nations, beside the Aryan, also point to the North Pole as their original home; for it is not contended that the Aryans may be the only people of northern origin. On the contrary, there are grounds to believe that the five races of men (pañcha janâḥ) often mentioned in the Ṛig-Veda may have been the races which lived with the Aryans in their original home, for we cannot suppose that the Vedic Aryas after their dispersion from the original home met only with five races in their migrations, or were divided only into five branches. But the question is one which can be finally decided only after a good deal of further research; and as it is not necessary to mix it up with the question of the original home of the Aryans, we may leave it out for the present. If the North Pole is conclusively shown to be the cradle of the human race hereafter, it would not affect in the least the conclusion we have drawn in these pages from a number of definite Vedic and Avestic traditions, but if the existence of the Aryan home near the North Pole is proved, as we have endeavored to do in the foregoing pages, by independent testimony, it is sure to strengthen the probability of the northern home of the whole human race; and as the traditions of the Aryan people are admittedly better preserved in the Veda and the Avesta than those of any other race, it is safer and even desirable to treat the question of the primeval Aryan home independently of the general problem taken up by Dr. Warren and other scholars. That the Veda and the Avesta are the oldest books of the Aryan race is now conceded by all, and we have seen that it is not difficult to ascertain, from traditions contained therein, the site of the Aryan Paradise, now that we begin to search for it in the light thrown upon the subject by modern scientific researches.

            But if the fact of an early Aryan home in the far north is once established by indisputable traditional evidence, it is sure to revolutionize the existing views regarding the primitive history or religion of the Aryan races. Comparative philologists and Sanskritists, who looked for the primeval home “somewhere in Central Asia,” have advanced the theory that the whole progress of the Aryan race, intellectual, social or moral from primeval savagery to such civilization as is disclosed by the Vedic hymns, was effected on the plains of Central Asia. It was on these plains, we are told, that our oldest ancestors gazed upon the wonders of dawn or the rising sun with awe and astonishment, or reverentially watched the storm-clouds hovering in the sky to be eventually broken up by the god of rain and thunder, thereby giving rise to the worship of natural elements and thus laying down the foundations of later Aryan mythology. It was on these plains that they learnt the art of weaving, the products of which superseded the use of hides for clothing, or constructed their chariots, or trained their horses, or discovered the use of metals like gold and silver. In short, all the civilization and culture which Comparative Philology proves on linguistic grounds to have been common to the different Aryan races before their separation is regarded to have, first originated or developed on the plains of Central Asia in post-Glacial times. Dr. Schrader, in his Pre-historic Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples, gives us an exhaustive summary of facts and arguments regarding primitive Aryan culture and civilization which can be deduced from Linguistic Palæology, or Comparative Philology, and as a repertory of such facts the book stands unrivalled. But we must remember that the results of Comparative Philology, howsoever interesting and instructive they may be from the linguistic or the historical point of view, are apt to mislead us if we know not the site of the original home, or the time when it was inhabited or abandoned by the ancestors of our race. Comparative Philology may teach us that cow was an animal known and domesticated before the Aryan separation, or that the art of weaving was known in those old days, because the words “cow” and “weave” can be traced in all the Aryan languages. But it is now found that equations like these do not help us much in definitely ascertaining where the united Aryans lived and when they separated; while recent researches in Archaeology and Anthropology have exhibited the improbability of a Central Asian home of the Aryan races and successive migrations therefrom to European countries. The hypothesis of a Central Asian home is, therefore, now almost abandoned; but strange to say, that those, who maintain that Europe was inhabited at the beginning of the Neolithic age by the ancestors of the races who now inhabit the same regions, are prepared to leave undetermined the question whether these races originated in Europe or went there from some other land. Thus Canon Taylor, in his Origin of the Aryans, confidently advises us that we need not concern ourselves with the arguments of those who assert that Europe was inhabited by the ancestors of the existing races even in the Paleolithic period; for, says he, “philologists will probably admit that within the limits of the Neolithic age, it would be possible to find sufficient time for the evolution and the differentiation of the Aryan languages.”( Taylor’s Origin of the Aryans, p. 57.) In the last chapter of the same book we are further informed that the mythologies of the different branches of the Aryan race must have been developed after their separation, and that resemblances, like Dyaus-pitar and Jupiter, or Varuṇa and Uranus, must be taken to be merely verbal and not mythological in their origin. In short, the advocates of the Central Asian as well, as of the northern European home of the Aryans are both unwilling to carry back the beginning of the Aryan civilization beyond post-Glacial times, and we are told that Aryan mythology and religion cannot, therefore, claim any higher antiquity.

            All such guesses and speculations about the origin of the Aryan race and its civilization will have now to be revised in the new light thrown upon the subject by the theory of the Arctic home in pre-Glacial times. We cannot now maintain that primitive Aryans were a post-Glacial race, or that they advanced from barbarism to civilization in the Neolithic period either in Central Asia or in the northern parts of Europe; nor it is possible to argue that because the mythologies of the different branches of the Aryan race do not disclose the existence of common deities, these mythologies must be taken to have developed after the separation of the Aryan races from their common home. Thus, for instance, we are told that though the word Uṣhas occurs in Zend as Uṣhangh, and may be compared to Greek Eos, Latin Aurora, Lithuanian Auszra, Teutonic Asustrô and Anglo-Saxon Eostra, yet it is only in the Vedic mythology that we find Uṣhas raised to the dignity of the goddess of the morning; and from this we are asked to infer that the worship of the dawn was developed only on the Indian soil. The theory of the Arctic home, however, makes it impossible to argue in this way. If Vedic deities are clothed with attributes which are unmistakably polar in their origin, — and in the case of Uṣhas, the polar character has been shown to be unquestionable, — we cannot hold that the legends pertaining to these deities were developed on the plains of Central Asia. It was impossible for the Indian priests to conceive or picture the splendors of the dawn in the way we meet with in the Ṛig-Veda; for it has been shown that the evanescent dawn, with which they were familiar, is quite dissimilar in character to the Arctic dawn, the subject of the Vedic hymns. And what applies to the dawn can be predicated as well of other deities and myths, e.g., of Indra and Vṛitra or the captive Waters, of Viṣhṇu hibernating for four months in a year, or of Trita or the Third going down in a well, or of the Ashvins rescuing or saving the gods from the temporary affliction to which they were again and again subjected. These very names may not be found in the Celtic or the Teutonic mythology, but an examination of the latter has been found to disclose the same polar characteristics which are possessed by Vedic deities or myths; and so long as this fundamental coincidence exists between the two, it is unreasonable to contend that the mythologies of the different branches of the Aryan race had no common origin, or that the resemblances between the names of the deities are more linguistic than mythological. The destruction of the ancient Aryan home by glaciation and deluge introduces a new factor in the history of the Aryan civilization; and any shortcomings or defects in the civilization of the Aryan races, that are found to have inhabited the northern parts of Europe in the beginning of the Neolithic age, as distinguished from the civilization of the Asiatic Aryan races, must now be accounted for as the result of a natural relapse into barbarism after the great catastrophe. It is true that ordinarily we cannot conceive a race that has once launched on a career ofprogress and civilization suddenly retrograding or relapsing into barbarism. But the same rule cannot be applied to the case of the continuation of the ante-diluvian civilization into post-diluvian times. In the first place very few people could have survived a cataclysm of such magnitude as the deluge of snow and ice; and those that survived could hardly be expected to have carried with them all the civilization of the original home, and introduced it intact in their new settlements, under adverse circumstances, amongst the non-Aryan tribes, in the north of Europe or on the plains of Central Asia. We must also bear in mind the fact that the climate of northern Europe and Asia, though temperate at present, must have been very much colder after the great deluge, and the descendants of those who had to migrate to these countries from the Polar regions, born only to a savage or nomadic life, could have, at best, preserved only fragmentary reminiscences of the ante-diluvian culture and civilization of their forefathers living in the once happy Arctic home. Under these circumstances we need not be surprised if the European Aryas are found to be in an inferior state of civilization at the beginning of the Neolithic age. On the contrary the wonder is that so much of the ante-diluvian religion or culture should have been preserved from the general wreck, caused by the last Glacial epoch, by the religious zeal and industry of the bards or priests of the Iranian or the Indian Aryas. It is true that they looked upon these relics of the ancient civilization, as a sacred treasure entrusted to them to be scrupulously guarded and transmitted to future generations. Yet considering the difficulties with which they had to contend, we cannot but wonder how so much of the ante-diluvian civilization, religion or worship was preserved in the Veda or the Avesta. If the other Aryan races have failed to preserve these ancient traditions so well, it would be unreasonable to argue therefrom that the civilization or the culture of these races was developed after their separation from the common stock.

            It has been shown previously that the climate of the Arctic regions in the inter-Glacial period was so mild and temperate as to be almost an approach to a perpetual spring, and that there was then a continent of land round about the Pole, the same being submerged during the glacial epoch. The primitive Aryans residing in such regions must, therefore, have lived a happy life. The only inconvenience experienced by them was the long Arctic night; and we have seen how this phenomenon has served to give rise to various myths or legends describing the struggle between the powers of light and darkness. The occurrence of the Arctic night, its tiresome length, and the long expected morning light on the horizon after some months were, naturally enough, the most important facts which attracted the attention of our primeval forefathers, and it is no wonder if they believed it to be the greatest exploit of their gods when the beneficent dawn came dawning up, after several months of darkness, from the nether world of aerial waters, inaugurating a new yearly round of sacrifices, festivals, or other religious or social ceremonies. It was the beginning of the Devayâna, when the powers of light celebrated their victory over the demons of darkness, and the Child of the Morning, the Kumâra, the leader of the army of gods, walked victoriously along the Devayâna path commencing the cycle of human ages, ormânuṣhâ yugâ, as mentioned in the Ṛig-Veda. The Pitṛiyâna, or the walk of the Manes, corresponded with the dark winter, the duration of which extended in the original home from two to six months. This was the period of rest or repose during which, as observed previously, people refrained even from disposing the bodies of the dead owing to the absence of sunshine. All social and religious ceremonies of feasts were also suspended during this period as the powers of darkness were believed to be in the ascendant. In short, the oldest Aryan calendar was, as remarked by Dr. Schrader, divided into two parts, a summer of seven or ten months and a corresponding winter of five or two months. But it seems to have been an ancient practice to reckon the year by counting the recurrence of summers or winters rather than by combining the two seasons. It is thus that we can account for a year of seven or ten months in old times, or annual sacrificial sattras extending over the same period. This calendar is obviously unsuited to places to the south of the Arctic circle; and the Aryans had, therefore, to change or reform the same, as was done by Numa, in postglacial times, when, expatriated from their mother-land, they settled in the northern parts of Europe and Central Asia. But the reminiscence of the Devayâna as a special period of sacrifices and ceremonies was tenaciously preserved, and even now it is looked upon as a season of special religious merit. We can, on this theory, easily explain why the Gṛihya-Sûtras attach special importance to the Uttarâyaṇa from a ceremonial point of view, and why death during theDakṣhiṇâyana is regarded as inauspicious. How the inter-Glacial year of seven or ten months was changed to a year of twelve months in post-Glacial times, and how the equinoctial division which obtained at first on the analogy of the Devayâna and the Pitṛiyâna, was subsequently altered to the solstitial one, the old meaning of the word Uttarâyaṇa undergoing (Orion, p. 25ƒ.) a similar change, are questions, which, though important in the history of the Aryan calendar, are not relevant in this place; and we shall, therefore, proceed with the subject in hand. It is urged by some writers that though the worship of natural elements is found to obtain in several ancient Indo-European religions, yet its beginnings cannot be supposed to go back to the time of the common origin of the related peoples. Dr. Schrader has ably refuted this view in the concluding pages of his book on the pre-historic antiquities of Aryan peoples; and the theory of the Arctichome powerfully supports Dr. Schrader in his conclusions. “If we put aside every thing unsafe and false,” observes Dr. Schrader, “that Comparative Mythology and History of Religion has accumulated on this subject, we are solely, from the consideration of perfectly trustworthy material, more and more driven, on all sides, to assume that the common basis of ancient European religions was a worship of the powers of Nature practiced in the Indo-European period.” The fact that the Vedic deities like Uṣhas, the Âdityas, the Ashvins or the Vṛitrahan are found invested with Polar characteristics, further goes to confirm the conclusion based on linguistic grounds, or common etymological equations for sky, morning, fire, light or other natural powers. In short, whatever be the stand-point from which we view the subject in question, we are led to the conclusion that the shining sky (Dyaus pitâ), the sun (Sûrya), the fire (Agni), the Dawn (Uṣhas), the storm or thunder (Tanyatu) had already attained to the dignity of divine beings or gods in the primeval period; and etymological equations like Sanskrit yaj, Zend yaz and Greek azomai, show that these gods were worshipped and sacrifices offered to them to secure their favor even in primeval times. Whether this worship originated, or, in other words, whether the powers of nature were invested with divine honors only in inter-Glacial times or in times anterior to it, cannot, as stated above, be ascertained from the materials in our hands at present. But this much is beyond question that the worship of these elements, as manifestations of divine power, had already become established amongst the undivided Aryans in the Arctic home, and the post-diluvian Aryan religions were developed from this ancient system of worship and sacrifices. We have seen that the Ṛig-Veda mentions the ancient sacrificers of the race like Manu, Aṅgirases, Bhṛigus and others, and the fact that they completed their sacrificial sessions in seven, nine or ten months proves that they were the sacrifices of the undivided Aryans in their Arctic home.( (* See Dr. Schrader’s Pre-His. Antiqui. Ary. Peoples, transl. by Jevons, p. 418.)  It was these sacrificers who performed the sacrifices of, the people during a summer of seven or ten months and worshipped the mutational deities with offerings in primeval times. But when the sun went down below the horizon, these sacrificers naturally closed their sessions and made their offerings only to Vṛitrahan, the chief hero in the struggle with the demons of darkness, in order that he may, invigorated by their offerings eventually bring back the light of the dawn to these worshippers. I do not mean to assert that an elaborate system of sacrifices existed in inter-Glacial times; but I do maintain that sacrifice was the main ritual of the primeval Aryan religion, and that it is a mistake to suppose that it originated or was invented only in post-Glacial times. I have dwelt at some length on the question of ancient religious worship and ritual in this place because the theory of the Arctic home very well exposes, in my opinion, the fallacious character of many of the existing views on this subject.

            A people, who had come to worship the powers of Nature as manifestations of divine will and energy, who had a well-developed language of their own, and who had already evolved a legendary literature out of the Arctic conditions of the year in their congenial home near the North Pole, may well be expected to have made a good advance in civilization. But we have at present very few means by which we can ascertain the exact degree of civilization attained by the undivided Aryans in their primitive home. Comparative Philology tells us that primitive Aryans were familiar with the art of spinning and weaving, knew and worked in metals, constructed boats and chariots, founded and lived in cities, carried on buying and selling, and had made considerable progress in agriculture. We also know that important social or political institutions or organizations, as, for instance marriage or the laws of property, prevailed amongst the forefathers of our race in those early days; and linguistic paleontology furnishes us with a long list of the fauna and the flora known to the undivided Aryans. These are important linguistic discoveries, and taking them as they are, they evidently disclose a state of civilization higher than that of the savages of the Neolithic age. But in the light of the Arctic theory we are naturally led to inquire if the culture of the primitive Aryans was confined only to the level disclosed by Comparative Philology, or whether it was of a higher type than the one we can predicate of them simply on linguistic grounds. We have seen above that in the case of the mythological deities and theirworship the Polar character of many of the deities at once enables us to assign them to the primitive period even when their names are not found in all the Aryan languages; and the results of Comparative Philology regarding primitive Aryan culture will have to be checked and revised in the same way. The very fact that after compulsory dispersion from their mother-land the surviving Aryans, despite the fragmentary civilization they carried with them, were able to establish their supremacy over the races they came across in their migrations from the original home at the beginning of the post-Glacial period, and that they succeeded, by conquest or assimilation, in Aryanising the latter in language, thought and religion under circumstances which could not be expected to be favorable to them, is enough to prove that the original Aryan civilization must have been of a type far higher than that of the non-Aryan races, or than the one found among the Aryan races that migrated southward after the destruction of their home by the Ice Age. So long as the Aryan races inhabiting the northern parts of Europe in the beginning of the Neolithic age were believed to be autochthonous there was no necessity of going beyond the results of Comparative Philology to ascertain the degree of civilization attained by the undivided Aryans. But now we see that the culture of the Neolithic Aryans is obviously only a relic, an imperfect fragment, of the culture attained by the undivided Aryans in their Arctic home; and it would, therefore, be unreasonable to argue that such and such civilization, or culture cannot be predicated of the undivided Aryans simply because words indicating the same are found only in some and not in all the Aryan languages. In other words, though we may accept the result of Comparative Philology so far as they go, we shall have to be more cautious hereafter in inferring that such and such a thing was not known to the primitive Aryans because common etymological equations for the same cannot be discovered in all the Aryan languages. We have, it is true, no means of ascertaining how much of the original civilization was lost in the deluge, but we cannot, on that account, deny that some portion of it must have been irrecoverably lost in the great cataclysm that destroyed the original home. Under these circumstances all that we can safely assert is that the degree of culture disclosed by Comparative. Philology is the lowest or the minimum that can be predicated of the undivided Aryans. his important to bear this reservation in mind because undue importance is sometimes attached to the results of Comparative Philology by a kind of reasoning which appeared all right so long the question of the site of the original home was unsettled. But now that we know that Aryan race and religion are both inter-Glacial and their ultimate origin is lost in geological antiquity, it does not stand to reason to suppose that the inter-Glacial Aryans were a race of savages. The archaeologists, it is true, have established the succession of the ages of Stone, Bronze and Iron; and according to this theory the Aryan race must have once been in the Stone age. But there is nothing in archeology which requires us to place the Stone age of the Aryan races in post-Glacial times; and when Comparative Philology has established the fact that undivided Aryans were acquainted with the use of metals, it becomes clear that the degree of civilization reached by the undivided Aryans in their Arctic home was higher than the culture of the Stone age or even that of the age of metals. I have referred in the first chapter of the book to the opinion of some eminent archaeologists that the mete] age was introduced into Europe from other countries either by commerce or by the Indo-European race going there from outside, and the theory of the Arctic home with its inter-Glacial civilization lends support to this view. I might in passing here refer to an instance which illustrates the danger of relying exclusively on Comparative Philology in this respect. Dr. Schrader has shown that copper, at any rate, was known to the primitive Aryans; and he admits the possibility that this metal may, in isolated cases, have been employed in the manufacture of weapons like fighting knives or lance-heads. But we are told that there are linguistic difficulties which prevent us from assuming that gold and silver were known in the primitive period. On an examination of the subject it will, however, be seen that in cases like these the philologist relics too much on his own methods or follows them too rigidly. For instance khalkos (copper or bronze) is mentioned by Homer as a medium of exchange (II, vii, 472); and Comparative Philology discloses two etymological equations, one derived from the root mei (Sans. me) denoting “barter,” and the other derived from the Sanskrit krî Greek priamai, meaning purchase. The Ṛig-Veda (VIII, 1, 5) also mentions a measure of the value called shulka, and, as, the word is used in later Sanskrit literature to denote a small payment made at a toll-house, it is not unlikely that shulka, originally meant a small coin of copper or bronze similar in character to the khalkos mentioned by Homer. Now it is true that ordinarily Greek kh, is represented by h in Sanskrit, and that if this rule be rigidly applied to the present case it would not be possible to phonetically identify khalkos with shulka. Philologists have, therefore, tried to compare khalkoswith Sanskrit hrîku or hlîku. But, as remarked by Dr. Schrader, the connection seems to be altogether improbable. Hrîku is not a Vedic word, nor does it mean copper or bronze. Despite the phonetic difficulty, — and the difficulty is not so serious as it seems to be at the first sight, for Sanskrit sh is represented by k in Greek, and this k sometimes gives place to the aspirated kh, — I am, therefore, inclined to identify khalkos with shulka; and if this is correct, we must conclude that undivided Aryans were familiar with some metal, either copper or, bronze, as a medium of exchange. There are many other points similar in character. But it is impossible to go further into this subject in this place. I only want to point out the reservation with which we shall have now to accept the results of Comparative Philology in forming our estimate of the degree of culture reached by the primitive Aryans, and show that when the primitive Aryan culture is carried back to the inter-Glacial age, the hypothesis that primitive Aryans were hardly better than the savage races of the present day at once falls to the ground. If the civilization of some Aryan races in the Neolithic age appears to be inferior or imperfect it must, therefore, be, as observed above, ascribed to relapse or retrogression after the destruction of the ancient civilization by the Ice Age, and the necessarily hard and nomadic life led by the people who survived the cataclysm. The Asiatic Aryans, it is true, where able to preserve a good deal more of the original religion and culture, but it seems to be mainly due to their having incorporated the old traditions into their religious hymns or songs; and made it the exclusive business of a few to preserve and hand down with religious scrupulosity these prayers and songs to future generations by means of memory specially trained and cultivated for the purpose. But even then how difficult the task was can be very well seen from the fact that a greater portion of the hymns and songs originally comprised in the Avesta has been lost; and though the Veda is better preserved, still what we have at present is only a portion of the literature which is believed on good grounds to have once been in existence. It may seem passing- strange that these books should disclose to us the existence of an original Arctic home so many centuries after the traditions were incorporated into them. But the evidence in the foregoing pages shows that it is a fact; and if so, we must hold that the Neolithic Aryan people in Europe were not, as Prof. Max Müller thinks, progressive, but, for the time at least, necessarily retrogressive savages working only with such residua of the ante-diluvian civilization as were saved from its general wreck.*(* Max Müller’s Last Essays, pp. 172ƒƒ.)

But though the Vedic or Aryan people and their religion and culture can thus be traced to the last inter-Glacial period, and though we know that the degree of culture attained by the primitive Aryans was of a higher type than some scholars seem to be willing to assign to them, yet there are many points in the primitive Aryan history which still remain unsolved. For instance, when and where the Aryan race was differentiated from other human races, or how and where the Aryan speech was developed, are important questions fromthe anthropological point of view, but we have, at present, no, means to answer the same satisfactorily. It is quite possible that other human races might have lived with the Aryans in their home at this time; but the Vedic evidence is silent on this point. The existence of the human race is traced by geologists to the Tertiary era; and it is now geologically certain that the gigantic changes wrought on this globe by glacial epochs were witnessed by man. But anthropology does not supply us with any data from which we can ascertain when, where, or how the human race came to be differentiated according to color or language. On the contrary, it is now proved that at the earliest date at which human remains. have been found, the race was already divided into several, sharply distinguished types; and this, as observed by Laing, leaves the question of man’s ultimate origin completely open to speculation, and enables both monogenists and polygenists, to contend for their respective views with plausible arguments and without fear of being refuted by facts.* (* Laing’s Human Origins, pp. 404-5.)

The evidence, set forth in the foregoing pages, does not enable us to solve any of these questions regarding the ultimate origin of the human race or even of the Aryan people or their language and religion. We have nothing in this evidence for ascertaining how far the existence of the Aryan race can be traced back to pre-Glacial, as distinguished from inter-Glacial times; or whether the race was descended from a single pair (monogeny) or plurality of pairs (polygeny) in the remotest ages. The traditional evidence collected by us only warrants us in. taking back the Aryan people and their civilization from the Temperate zone in post-Glacial to the Arctic regions in inter-Glacial times. It is true that Aryans and their culture or religion cannot be supposed to have developed all of a sudden at the close of the last inter-Glacial period, and the ultimate origin of both must, therefore, be placed in remote geological times. But it is useless to speculate on this question without further evidence, and in the present state of our knowledge we must rest content with the result that though Aryan race or religion can be traced to the last inter-Glacial-period yet the ultimate origin of both is still lost in geological antiquity.

            I cannot conclude this chapter without briefly examining the bearing of our results on the views entertained by Hindu theological scholars regarding the origin, character and authority of the Vedas. It is a question which has been discussed with more or less acuteness, subtlety, or learning ever since the days of the Brâhmaṇas; and frond a purely theological point of view I do not think there remains anything to be now said upon it. Again, for the purposes of scientific investigation, it is necessary to keep the theological and the antiquarian aspect of the question quite distinct from each other. Yet when our investigation, conducted on strict scientific lines, is completed, we may usefully compare our conclusions with the theological views and see how far they harmonize or clash with each other. In fact no Hindu who reads a book like the present, can avoid making such a comparison; and we shall be lightening his task by inserting in this place a few remarks on this subject. According to the view held by Hindu theologians, the Vedas are eternal (nitya), without a beginning (anâdi), and also not created by a human author (a-pauruṣheya); and we are told that these attributes have been predicated of our sacred books from the most ancient times known to our divines or philosophers. The whole of the third Volume of Dr. Muir’s Original Sanskrit Texts is devoted to the discussion of this subject, a number of original passages and arguments bearing on which are there collected, including Sâyaṇa’s lucid summary in the introduction to his commentary on the Ṛig-Veda; and more recently the late Mahâmahopâdhyâya Râjârâma Shâstri Bodas, the editor of the Bombay edition of the Ṛig-Veda, has done the same in a Sanskrit pamphlet, the second edition of which is now published by his son, Mr. M. R. Bodas, of the Bombay High Court Bar. I shall, therefore, give in this place only a summary of the different views of Hindu theologians, without entering into the details of the controversy which can be studied from the above books. The question before us is whether the Vedic hymns, that is, not only the words of the hymns but also the religious system found or referred to therein, are the compositions of the Ṛiṣhis to whom they are assigned in the Anukramaṇikâs, or the ancient Indexes of the Veda, in the sense in which the Shâkuntala is a composition of Kâlidâsa; or whether these hymns existed from times immemorial, in other words, whether they are eternal and without a beginning. The hymns themselves are naturally the best evidence on the point. But, as shown by Dr. Muir in the second chapter (pp. 218-86) of the Volume above mentioned, the utterances of the Vedic Ṛiṣhis on this point are not unanimous. Thus side by side with passages in which the Vedic bards have expressed their emotions, hopes or fears, or prayed for worldly comforts and victory over their enemies, condemning evil practices like gambling with dice (X, 34), or have described events, which on their face seem to be the events of the day; side by side with passages where the poet says that ho has made (kṛî) generated (jan), or fabricated (takṣh) a new (navyasî or apûrvya) hymn, much in the same way as a carpenter fashions a chariot (I, 47, 2; 62, 13; II, 19, 8; IV, 16, 20; VIII, 95, 5; X, 23, 6; 39, 14; 54, 6; 160, 5; &c.); or with hymns in which we are plainly told that they are composed by so and so, the son of so and so, (I, 60, 5; X, 63, 17; 67, 1; &c.), there are to be found in the Ṛig-Veda itself an equally large number of hymns where the Ṛiṣhis state in unmistakable terms that the hymns sung by them were the results of inspiration from Indra, Varuṇa, Soma, Aditi, or some other deity; or that the Vedic verses (ṛichaḥ) directly emanated from the Supreme Puruṣha, or some other divine source; or that they were given by gods (devatta), or generated by them and only seen or perceived (pashyât) by the poets in later times, (I, 37, 4; II, 23, 2; VII, 66, 11; VIII, 59, 6; X, 72, 1; 88, 8; 93, 9; &c.). We are told that Vâch (Speech) is nityâ or eternal (VIII, 75, 6, also cf. X, 125); or that the gods generated the divine Vâch and also the hymns (VIII, 100, 11; 101, 16; X, 88, 8). The evidence of the Vedic hymns does not, therefore, enable us to decide the

question one way or the other; but if the composition of the hymns is once ascribed to human effort, and one to divine inspiration or to the gods directly, it is clear that at least some of these old Ṛiṣhis believed the hymns to have been sung under inspiration or generated directly by the goddess of speech or other deities. We may reconcile the former of these views with the passages where the hymns are said to be made by human effort, on the supposition that the poets who sang the hymns believed themselves to be acting under divine inspiration. But the explanation fails to account for the statement that the Ṛik, the Yajus, and the Sâman, all emanated from the Supreme Puruṣha or the gods; and we must, therefore, conclude that the tradition about the eternity of the Vedas, or their divine origin is as old as the Veda itself. Accordingly, when we come to the Brâhmaṇas and the Upaniṣhads, we naturally find the same view prevailing. They tell us that the Ṛig-Veda proceeded from Agni (fire), the Yajur-Veda from Vâyu (wind), and the Sâma-Veda from Sûrya (the sun), and that these three deities got their warmth from Prajâpati who practiced lapas for the purpose (Shat. Brâh, XI, 5, 8, 1 ƒƒ; Ait. Brâh. V, 32-34; Chhân. Up. IV, 17, 1); or that the Vedas are the breathings of the Supreme Being (Bṛih. Up. II, 4, 10); or that Prajâpati by means of the eternal Vâch created the Vedas and everything else in this world; and the same view is met with in the Smṛitis like those of Manu (I, 21-23) and others, or in the Purâṇas, several extracts from which are given by Dr. Muir in the volume above referred to. It is admitted that the Vedas, with other things, are destroyed, at the end of a Kalpa, by the deluge (pralaya) which overtakes: the world at the time. But we are told that this does not affect the question of the eternity of the new Kalpa by Brahmâ himself after the grand deluge, and by the Ṛiṣhis, who survive, after minor deluges. The authority generally quoted in support of this view is a verse from the Mahâbhârata (Shânti-Parvan, Chap. 210, v. 19) which says, “The great Ṛiṣhis, empowered by Svayambhû (the self-born), formerly obtained, through tapas (religious austerity), the Vedas and the Itihâsas, which haddisappeared at the end of the (preceding) Yuga.”* (Bhavabhûti, Utt., I, 15. Also Cf. Ṛig. VIII, 59, 6, quoted infra )The Ṛiṣhis are, therefore, called the seers and not the makers of the Vedic hymns; and the personal designation of some Shâkhâs, branches or recessions of Vedas, as Taittirîya, Kâṭhaka, &c., as well as the statements in the Vedic hymns, which say that so and so hasmade or generated such and such a hymn, are understood to mean that the particular Shâkhâ or hymn was perceived, and only perceived, by the particular Ṛiṣhi or poet. It is not, however, till we come to the works of the authors and expositors of the different schools of Hindu philosophy (darshanas) that we find the doctrine of the eternity of the Vedas subjected to a searching examination; and, as remarked by Dr. Muir, one who reads the discussions of these writers cannot fail to be struck “with the acuteness of their reasoning, the logical precision with which their arguments are presented, and the occasional liveliness and ingenuity of their illustrations.”†( Muir, O. S. T., Vol. III, p. 58.) They all bear witness to the fact that so far as tradition went, — an unbroken tradition of great antiquity, — there was no remembrance of the Vedas having been ever composed by or ascribed to any human author; and taking into consideration the, learning and the piety of these scholars, their testimony must be regarded as an unimpeachable proof of the existence of such a tradition, which was considered ancient several centuries before the Christian era. But though a tradition whose high antiquity can be so well established deserves to be seriously considered in our investigations regarding the character of the Vedas, yet it is, after all, a negative proof, showing, it may be urged, nothing more than no human author of the Veda has been known from times beyond the memory of all these ancient scholars.

Jaimini, the author of Mîmâṁsâ Sutras, therefore, further deduces (I, 1, 5) the eternity of the Vedas from the relation or connection between words and their meanings, which he holds to be eternal (autpattika) and not conventional. A word is defined to be an aggregate of letters in a particular order, and its sense is said to be conveyed by these letters following each other in a definite succession. But Grammarians are not satisfied with this view, and maintain that the sense of a word is not expressed by the aggregate of its constituent letters which are transient, but by a certain super-sensuous entity, called sphoṭa (i.e., manifester, from sphuṭ), which supervenes the aggregate of the letters as soon as they are pronounced, and reveals their meaning. Jaimini denies that there are words in the Vedas which denote any transient objects, and as the Vedic words and their sense are eternal, it follows, according to him, that the Vedas are self-demonstrative, or that they shine, like the sun, by their own light, and are, therefore, perfect and infallible. If particular parts of the Vedas are designated after some Ṛiṣhis, it does not, we are told, prove those sages to have been their authors, but merely the teachers who studied and handed them down. Bâdarâyaṇa, as interpreted by Shaṅkarâchârya (I, 31, 26-33), the great leader of the Vedânta School, accepts the doctrine of the eternity of sound or words, but adds that it is the species to which the word belongs, and not the word itself, that is eternal or indestructible, and, there fore, though the names of deities, like Indra and others, which are all created and hence liable to destruction, are mentioned in the Veda, it does not affect the question of its eternity as the species to which Indra and others are said to belong is still eternal. In short, Vedic names and forms of species are eternal, and it is by remembering these that the world is created by Brahmâ at the beginning of each Kalpa (Maitr. Up., VI, 22). The Veda is, therefore, the original WORD the source from which every thing else in the world emanated, and as such it cannot but be eternal; and it is interesting, as pointed out by Prof. Max Müller in his Lectures on Vedanta Philosophy, to compare this doctrine with that of Divine Logas of the Alexandrian Schools in the West. The Naiyâyikas, on the other hand, deny the doctrine of the eternity of sound or word, but hold that the authority of the Vedas is established by the fact of their having emanated from competent (âpta) persons who had an intuitive perception of duty (sâkṣhâtkṛita dharmâṇaḥ, as Yâska puts it), and whose competence is fully proved by the efficacy of such of the Vedic injunctions as relate to mundane matters, and can, therefore, be’ tested by experience; while the author of the Vaisheṣhika Sûtras clearly refers (I, 1, 3) the Veda to Îshvara or God as its framer. The Sâṅkhyas (Sâṇkhya Sûtras, V, 40-51) agree with the Naiyâyikas in rejecting the doctrine of the eternity of the connection of a word with its meaning; and though they regard the Veda as pauruṣheya in the sense that it emanated from the Primeval Puruṣha, yet they maintain that it was not the result of a conscious effort on the part of this Puruṣha, but only an unconscious emanation from him like his breathing. According to this view the Veda cannot be called eternal in the same sense as the Mîmâṁsakas have done, and, therefore, the texts which assert the eternity of the Vedas, are said to refer merely to “the unbroken continuity of the stream of homogeneous succession,” (Veda-nityatâ-vâkyâni cha sajâtîyâ-nupûrvî-pravâhânuchcheda-parâṇi).* (Cf. Vedântaparibhâṣhâ Âgama-parichcheda, p. 55, quoted in Mahâmahopâdhyâya Jhalkikar’s Nyâya-kosha, 2nd Ed. p. 736. s.v.)Patanjali, the great grammarian, in his gloss on Pâṇini IV, 3, 101, solves the question by making a distinction between the language (the succession of words or letters, varṇânupûrvî, as we find it in the present texts) of the Vedas and their contents (artha), and observing that the question of the eternity of the Vedas refers to their sense which is eternal or permanent (artho nityaḥ), and not to the order of their letters, which has not always remained the same (varṇânupûrvî anityâ), and that it is through this difference in the latter respect that we have the different versions of Kaṭhas, Kalâpas, Mudakas, Pippalâdas and so on. This view is opposed to that of the Mîmâṁsakas who hold both sense and order of words to be eternal. But Patanjali is led to reject the doctrine of the eternity of the order of words, because in that case we cannot account for the different versions or Shâkhâs of the same Veda, all of which are considered to be equally authoritative though their verbal readings are sometimes different. Patanjali, as explained by his commentators Kaiyyaṭa and Nâgoji Bhaṭṭa, ascribes this difference in the different versions of the Veda to the loss of the Vedic text in the pralayas or deluges which occasionally overtake the world and their reproduction or repromulgation, at the beginning of each new age, by the sages, who survived, according to their remembrance. (See Muir O. S. T., Vol. III, pp. 96-97) Each manvantara or age has thus a Veda of its own which differs only in expression and not in sense from the ante-diluvian Veda, and that different recessions of co-ordinate authority of the same Veda are due to the difference in the remembrance of the Ṛiṣhis whose names are associated with the different Shâkhâs, and who repromulgate, at the beginning of the new age, the knowledge inherited by them, as a sacred trust, from their forefathers in the preceding Kalpa. This view substantially accords with that of Vyâsa as recorded in the verse from the Mahâbhârata quoted above. The later expositors of the different schools of philosophy have further developed these views of the Sutra-writers and criticized or defended the doctrine of the self-demonstrated authority of the scriptural texts (shabda-pramâṇa) in various ways. But we cannot go into their elaborate discussions in this place; nor is it necessary to do so, for eventually we have to fall back upon the view of Vyâsa and Patanjali, mentioned above, if the destruction of the Vedas during each pralaya, and its repromulgation at the commencement of the new age is admitted.

            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 endeavored 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 Purâṇas. 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:

            1000 or 8000 B.C. — The destruction of the original Arctic home by the last Ice Age and the commencement of the post-Glacial period.

            8000–5000 B.C. — The age of migration from the original home. The Survivors of the Aryan race roamed over the northern parts of Europe and Asia in search of lands suitable for new settlements. The vernal equinox was then in the constellation of Punarvasû, and as Aditi is the presiding deity of Punarvasû, according to the terminology adopted by me in Orion, this may, therefore, be called the Aditi or the Pre-Orion Period.

            5000–3000 B.C. — The Orion Period, when the vernal equinox was in Orion. Many Vedic hymns can be traced to the early part of this period and the bards of the race, seem to have not yet forgotten the real import or significance of the traditions of the Arctic home inherited by them. It was at this time that first attempts to reform the calendar and the sacrificial system appear to have been systematically made.

            3000–1400 B.C. — The Kṛittikâ Period, when the vernal equinox was in Pleiades. The Taittirîya Saṁhitâ and the Brâhmaṇas, which begin the series of nakṣhatras with the Kṛittikâs, are evidently the productions of this period. The compilation of the hymns into Saṁhitâ’s also appears, to be a work of the early part of this period. The traditions about the original Arctic home had grown dim by this time and very often misunderstood, making the Vedic hymns more and more unintelligible. The sacrificial system and the numerous details thereof found in the Brâhmaṇas seem to have been developed during this, time. It was at the end of this Period that the Vedâṅga-jyotiṣha was originally composed, or at any rate the position of the equinoxes mentioned therein observed and ascertained.

            1400–500 B.C. — The Pre-Buddhistic Period, when the Sûtras and the Philosophical systems made their appearance.

            These periods differ slightly from those mentioned by me in Orion; but the change is needed in consequence of the theory of the Arctic home which carries back the beginning of the Pre-Orion or the Aditi Period to the commencement of the present post-Glacial era. In the language of the Purâṇas the first period after the close of the Ice Age (8000–5000 B.C.) may be called the Kṛita Yuga or the age of wandering, as the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa (VII, 15) describes it to be. It was the period when the Aryan races, expatriated from their motherland, roamed over the northern parts of Europe and Asia in search of new homes. It is doubtful if the Brâhmaṇa meant as much when it described Kṛita to be the age of wandering. But nevertheless it is interesting to notice the new light thrown upon the characteristics of the four Yugas mentioned in the Brâhmaṇa. Thus we are told that “Kali is lying, Dvâpara is slowly moving, Tretâ is standing up, and Kṛita is wandering.” Dr. Haug understands this stanza to refer to the game of dice, and other scholars have proposed different interpretations. But in the light of the Arctic theory we may as well suppose that the different stages of life through which the Aryan races had to pass in post-Glacial times, from wandering in search of homes to final settlement in some lands of their choice, are here described, somewhat after the manner of the Avestic account of the sixteen ancient lands created by Ahura Mazda, and invaded in succession by Angra Mainyu. But even apart from this verse, we can very well see that during the first of the above periods the Aryan races had no fixed home, and many must have been the settlements made and abandoned by them before they permanently settled in congenial lands. I have already stated above that Aryan religion and worship are both inter-Glacial; and that Vedic religion and ritual is a post-Glacial development of such relics of the ancient religion as were preserved from the general wreck caused by the Ice Age; and this affords in my opinion a safe basis to compare our results with the, theological views mentioned above. We may not be able to fix definitely when each hymn of the Ṛig-Veda was sung; but we may safely say that those who survived the catastrophe, or their immediate descendants, must have incorporated into hymns the religious knowledge they had inherited as a sacred trust from their forefathers at the first opportunity, that is, soon after they were able to make at least temporary settlements. (* Ait. Brâh. VII, 15.)

The hymns cannot, therefore, be supposed to promulgate a new religion consciously or unconsciously evolved on the plains of Central Asia in post-Glacial times; and the Polar character of the Vedic deities removes every doubt on the point. How far the language of the hymns, as we have them at present, resembled the ante-diluvian forms of speech is a different question; and according to Patanjali and Vyâsa, we are not here concerned with the words or the syllables of the hymns, which, it is admitted, have not remained permanent. We have to look to the subject-matter of the hymns; and there is no reason to doubt either the competency or the trustworthiness of the Vedic bards to execute what they considered to be their sacred task or duty, viz., that of preserving and transmitting for the benefit of future generations, the religious knowledge they had inherited from their ante-diluvian forefathers. It was by an agency similar to this that the hymns have been preserved accent for accent, according to the lowest estimate, for the last 3000 or 4000 years; and what is achieved in more, recent times can certainly be held to have been done by the older bards in times when the traditions about the Arctic home and religion were still fresh in their mind. We may also observe that the hymns were publicly sung and recited, and the whole community, which must be supposed to have been interested in preserving its ancient religious rites and worship, must have keenly watched the utterances of these Ṛiṣhis. We may, therefore, safely assert that the religion of the primeval Arctic home was correctly preserved in the form of traditions by the disciplined memory of the Ṛiṣhis until it was incorporated first into crude as contrasted with the polished hymns (su-uktas) of the Ṛig-Veda in the Orion period, to be collected later on in Maṇḍalas and finally into Saṁhitâs; and that the subject-matter of these hymns is inter-Glacial, though its ultimate origin is still lost in geological antiquity. Without miring up the theological and historical views we may, therefore, now state the two in parallel columns as follows: —

Theological view		Historical view
1. The Vedas are eternal (nitya), beginning-less (anâdi) and not made by man (a-pauruṣheya). 2. The Vedas were destroyed in the deluge, at the end of the last Kalpa. 3. At the beginning of the present Kalpa, the Ṛiṣhis, through tapas, reproduced in substance, if not in form, the ante-diluvian Vedas, which they carried in their memory by the favor of god.		1. The Vedic or the Aryan religion can be proved to be nter-Glacial; but its ultimate origin is still lost in geological antiquity. 2. Aryan religion and culture were destroyed during the last Glacial period that invaded the Arctic Aryan home. 3. The Vedic hymns were sung in post-Glacial times by poets, who had inherited the knowledge or contents thereof in an unbroken tradition from their ante-diluvian forefathers.

            On a comparison of the two columns it will be found that the tradition about the destruction and the reproduction of the Vedas, recorded by Vyâsa in the Mahâbhârata verse referred to above, must be taken to have been founded substantially on a historical fact. It is true that according to the Pûraṇic chronology the beginning of the current Kalpa is placed several thousands of years before the present time; but if, according to the estimates of some modern geologists, the post-Glacial period is, even now, said to have commenced some 80,000 years ago, if not earlier, we need not be much surprised at the Pûraṇic estimate, especially when, as stated above, it is found to disclose a real tradition of 10,000 years assigned to a cycle of the four yugas, the first of which began with the new Kalpa, or, in the language of geology, with the present post-Glacial period. Another point wherein the two views may be said to differ is the beginninglessness (anâditva) of the Vedas. It is impossible to demonstrate historically or scientifically that Vedic religion and worship is absolutely without a beginning. All that we can say is that its beginning is lost in geological antiquity, or that the Vedic religion is as old as the Aryan language or the Aryan man himself. If theologians are not satisfied with the support which this scientific view accords to their theory about the eternity of the Vedas, the scientific and the theological views must stand, as they are, distinct from each other, for the two methods of investigation are essentially different. It is for this reason that I have stated the views in parallel columns for comparison without mixing them up. Whether the world was produced from the original WORD, or the Divine Logos, is a question which does not fall within the pale of historical investigation; and any conclusions based upon it or similar other doctrines cannot, therefore, be treated in this place. We may, however, still assert that for all practical purposes the Vedic religion can be shown to be beginningless even on strict scientific grounds.

            A careful examination of the Rig-Vedic hymns will show that the Vedic Ṛiṣhis were themselves conscious of the fact that the subject-matter of the hymns sung by them was ancient or ante-deluvian in character, though the expressions used were their own productions. We have already referred before to the two sets of Vedic passages, the first expressly saying that the hymns were made, generated or fashioned like a chariot by the Ṛiṣhis to whom they are ascribed, and the other stating in equally unmistakable terms that the hymns were inspired, given or generated by gods. Dr. Muir attempts to reconcile these two contradictory views by suggesting that the different Ṛiṣhis probably held different views; or that when both of them can be traced to the same author, he may have expressed the one at the time when it was uppermost in his mind, and the other at another; or that the Vedic Ṛiṣhisor poets had no very clearly defined ideas of inspiration, and thought that the divine assistance of which they were conscious did not render their hymns the less truly the production of their own mind.* (See Muir O. S. T. Vol. III, pp. 274-5) In short, the existence of a human is not supposed to be incompatible with that of the super-human element in the composition of these hymns. But it will be seen that the above reconciliation is at once weak and unsatisfactory. A better way to reconcile the conflicting utterances of the Ṛiṣhis would be to make a distinction between the expression, language, or form on the one hand, and the contents, substance or the subject-matter of the hymns on the other; and to hold that while theexpression was human, the subject matter was believed to be ancient or superhuman. There are numerous passages in the Ṛig-Veda where the bards speak of ancient poets (pûrve ṛiṣhayaḥ), or ancient hymns (I, 1, 2; VI, 44, 13; VII, 29, 4; VIII, 40, 12; X, 14, 15; &c.); and Western scholars understand by these phrases the poets or hymns of the past generations of Vedic bards, but not anterior to the post-Glacial times. But there are clear indications in the hymns themselves which go to refute this view. It is true that the Vedic bards speak of ancient and modern hymns; but they often tell us that though the hymn is new (navyasî), yet the god or the deity to whom it is addressed is old (pratna), or ancient (VI, 22, 7; 62, 4; X, 91, 13; &c.). This shows that the deities whose exploits were sung in the hymns ware considered to be ancient deities. Nay, we have express passages where not only the deities but their exploits are said. to be ancient, evidently meaning that the achievement spoken of in the hymns were traditional and not witnessed by the poet-himself; thus, in I, 32, I, the poet opens his song with a clear statement that he is going to sing those exploits of Indra which were achieved at first (prathamâni) or in early times, and the adjective pûrvyâṇî and pûrvîḥ are applied to Indra’s exploits in I, 11, 3, and I, 61 13. The achievements of the Ashvins are similarly said to be pûrvyâṇî in I, 117, 25; and the long list of the exploits given in this hymn clearly shows that the poet is here rather summarizing the exploits traditionally known to him than enumerating events witnessed by himself or by his forefathers in the near past. This is also evident from the fact that the ancient Ṛiṣhis mentioned in the hymns, like the Aṅgirases or Vasiṣhṭha, are believed to have been invested with supernatural powers (VII, 33, 7-13), or to have lived and conversed with (I, 179, 2), or shared in the enjoyments of the gods (Devânâm sadhamâdaḥ VIII, 76, 4). They are also said to be the earliest guides (pathikṛit, X, 14, 15)for future generations. It is impossible to suppose that Vedic poets could have ascribed such superhuman character to their ancestors in the near past; and we are, therefore, led to the conclusion that the ancestors here spoken of were the ante-diluvian ancestors (naḥpûrve pitaraḥ) who completed their sacrifices in the Arctic year of 7 or 10 months. And what is true of the ancestors applies as well to the ancient deities mentioned in the hymns. I have pointed out previously that the legend of Aditi and her sons is expressly stated to be a legend of the past age (pûrvyam yugam); and the same thing may be predicated of the legends of Indra, the Ashvins or the other deities whose exploits are described in the Ṛig-Veda as pûrvyâṇi or prathamâni, that is, old or ancient. In short, the ancient hymns, poets, or deities, mentioned in the Ṛig-Veda must be referred to a by-gone age and not to post-Glacial times. The Arctic character of these deities, it may be further observed, is intelligible only on this view. The Vedic bards may well be credited with having composed, or fashioned, new songs or hymns; but the question still remains whether the subject-matter of these hymns was of their own creation, and the fact that the deities. have been called ancient in contradistinction with the songs offered to them (VI, 62, 4), and are clothed with Polar attributes, at once enables us to solve the question by answering that though the wording of the hymns was new, their subject-matter was old, that is, traditionally handed down to the poet from remote ages. Thus in a hymn of the tenth Maṇḍala (X, 72, 1-2), the poet desiring to celebrate the births or the origin of gods, thus begins his hymn, “Let us, from the love of praise, celebrate, in recited hymns, the births of gods, — any one of us who in this later age may see them, (yaḥ pashyâd uttare yuge).” Here we have a distinct contrast between the births of gods on the one hand and the poet who may see the hymn in the later age on the other, evidently meaning that the subject-matter of the hymn is an occurrence of the former age (yuga), and that the poet celebrates as he perceives or sees it in the later age. The view that the Vedic hymns, or rather their contents, wereperceived and not made by the Ṛiṣhis, derives material support from this statement. A similar expression is also found in VIII, 59, 6, which says “Indra and Varuṇa! I have seen (abhi apashyam); through tapas that which ye formerly gaveto the Ṛiṣhis, wisdom, understanding of speech, sacred lore (shrutam) and all the places which the sages created when performing sacrifices.”*

The notion about the perception of the subject-matter of the Vedic hymns is here referred to almost in the same terms in which it is expressed by Vyâsa in the Mahâbhârata verse quoted above; and with such express texts before us, the only way to reconcile the conflicting statements about the human and the superhuman origin of the hymns is to refer them to theform and the matter of the hymns respectively, as suggested by Patanjali and other scholars. Dr. Muir notices a passage (VIII, 95, 4-5) where the poet is said to have “generated (ajîjanat) for Indra the newest exhilarating hymn (navîyasîm mandrâm giram), springing from an intelligent mind, an ancient mental product (dhiyam pratnâm), full of sacred truth.”( † See Muir O. S. T., Vol. III, p. 239) Here one and the same hymn is said to be both new and old at the same time; and Dr. Muir quotes Aufrecht to show that gir, that is, expression or wording, is here contrasted with dhî or thought, obviously showing that an old thought (pratnâ dhîḥ) has been couched in new language (navîyasî gîḥ), by the bard to whom the hymn is ascribed. In other words, the hymn is ancient in substance though new in expression, — a conclusion to which we have been already led on different grounds. We may also cite in this connection the fact that amongst the different heads into which the contents of the Brâhmaṇas have been classified by Indian divines, we find one which is termed Purâ-kalpa or the rites or traditions of a by-gone age, showing that even the Brâhmaṇas are believed to contain ante-diluvian stories or traditions.

The statement in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ that “The priests, in old times, were afraid that the dawn would not terminate or ripen into sunshine,” is quoted by Sâyaṇa as an example of Purâ-kalpa, and we have seen before that this can be explained only by supposing it to refer to the Arctic dawn, — an incident witnessible by man only in the inter-Glacial times. If the Brâhmaṇas can be thus shown to contain or refer to the facts of a by-gone age, a fortiori the Vedas may, very well, be said to do the same. Thus from whatever side we approach the question, we are irresistibly led, by internal as well as external evidence, to the conclusion that the subject-matter of the Vedic hymns is ancient and inter-Glacial, and that it was incorporated into the Vedic hymns in post-Glacial times by Ṛiṣhis who inherited the same in the shape of continuous traditions from their inter-Glacial forefathers.

                                             There are many other points in Vedic interpretation, or in Vedic and Purâṇic mythology, which are elucidated, or we may even say, intelligently and rationally explained for the first time, by the theory of the Arctichome in inter-Glacial times. For instance, we can now easily account for the disappointment of those Western scholars, who, when the Vedas became first known to them, expected to find therein the very beginnings of the Aryan civilization or the outpourings of the Aryan mind as it first became impressed with awe and wonder by the physical phenomena or the workings of natural elements and looked upon them as divine manifestations. Our theory now shows very clearly that though the Vedas are the oldest records of the Aryan race, yet the civilization, or the characteristics and the worship of the deities mention ed therein did not originate with the Vedic bards, but was derived by them from their inter-Glacial forefathers and preserved in the forms of hymns for the benefit of posterity; and if any one wants to trace the very beginnings of the Aryan civilization he must go back beyond the last-Glacial period, and see how the ancestors of the Aryan race lived and work ed in their primeval Polar home. Unfortunately we have very few materials for ascertaining the degree of this civilization.

But we think we have shown that there are grounds to hold that the inter-Glacial Aryan civilization and culture must have been of a higher type than what it is usually supposed to be: and that there is no reason why the primitive Aryan should not be placed on an equal footing with the pre-historic inhabitants of Egypt in point of culture and civilization. The vitality and superiority of the Aryan races, as disclosed by their conquest, by extermination or assimilation, of the non-Aryan races with whom they came in contact in their migrations in search of new lands from the North Pole to the Equator, if not to the farther south, is intelligible only on the assumption of a high degree of civilization in their original Arctic home; and when the Vedas come to be further examined in the light of the Arctic theory, we many certainly expect to discover therein many other facts, which will further support this view, but which are still hidden from us owing to our imperfect knowledge of the physical and social surroundings amidst which the ancestors of the Vedic Ṛiṣhis lived near the North Pole in times before the Glacial epoch. The exploration of the Arctic regions which is being carried on at present, may also help us hereafter in our investigation of the beginnings of the Aryan civilization. But all these things must be left to be done by future investigators when the theory of the Arctic home of the Aryans comes to be generally recognized as a scientific fact. Our object at present is to show that there is enough evidence in the Veda and the Avesta to establish the existence of an Arctic home in inter-Glacial times; and the reader, who has followed us in our arguments, set forth in the preceding pages, will at once perceive that the theory we have endeavored to prove, is based on a solid foundation of express text and passages traditionally preserved in the two oldest books of the Aryan race, and that it is amply fortified by independent corroboration received from the latest results of the correlative sciences, like Geology, Archaeology Linguistic Palæology, Comparative Mythology and Astronomy. In fact, the idea of searching for the evidence of an Arctic home in the Vedas may be said to have been stimulated, if not suggested, by the recent advances made in these sciences, and it will be seen that the method, adopted by us in working it up, is as rigid as it ought to be. It is now several centuries since the science of Vedic exegetics was founded by Indian Nairuktas; and it may seem surprising that traces of an Arctic home in the Vedas should remain undiscovered so long. But surprises like these are out of place in investigations of this kind, where one must be prepared to accept the results proved, in the light of advancing knowledge, by the strictest rules of logic and guide, and if the validity of our conclusions be tested by this standard, we hope it will be found that we have succeeded in discovering the true key to the interpretation of a number of Vedic texts and legends hitherto given up as hopeless, ignored or misunderstood. In these days of progress, when the question of the primitive human culture and civilization is approached and investigated from so many different sides, the science of Vedic interpretation cannot stand isolated or depend exclusively on linguistic or grammatical analysis; and we have simply followed the spirit of the time in seeking to bring about the co-ordination of the latest scientific results with the traditions contained in the oldest books of the Aryan race, — books which have been deservedly held in the highest esteem and preserved by our ancestors, amidst insurmountable difficulties, with religious enthusiasm ever since the beginning of the present age. 

INDEX

Abhiplava, a kind of ṣhaḷaha, 191, 193.

Adhyâtmikas, their school of Vedic interpretation, 220.

Aditi, and her Aditya sons, the legend of, 139-146; said to have occurred in a former yuga, 145, 428.

Âdityas, seven with an eighth stillborn brother, represent the seven monthly sun-gods in the Arctic region, 143-146, 262.

Âdityânâm-ayanam, an yearly sacrificial session, 177, 193.

Adri, a mountain, meaning of, in the Ṛig-Veda, 231, 234.

Æsir, gods, the reign of, 72.

Ages, archeological, of Stone, Bronze and Iron, 3; distinction between Neolithic and Paleolithic,    9; their co-relation with the geological, 10; of Beech, Oak and Fir, 11.

— Geological and their subdivisions, 10; climate and distribution of land and water in, 19-23.

— Human and divine in the Ṛig-Veda, 159 ƒ.

— Purâṇic, Kṛita, Tretâ, Dvâpara, and Kali; their real duration, 391-397; their characteristics, 423.

Aggilos, phonetic equivalent of Aṅgiras, 147.

Agni, fire, a Vedic matutinal deity, 68; living in long darkness, 116;

Aiyangâr, Mr., Nârâyaṇa, on the interpretation of Vedic myths on the Astral theory, 59, 227; on the nature of Kumâra, Kârrtikeya, 295; on the nature of Sitâ, 324.

Aiyer, Mr., on the yuga-system in the Purâṇas, 393-396.

Âjânadevatâs, 220.

Alburz, a mountain, separating the upper from the lower world in the Avesta, 247; apertures in, for the sun to pass through, 250, 296.

Alps, low in early geological ages, 20.

Altitude, high, its effect on climate, 20.

Amma, the ascending stream of, in the Finnish mythology, 256.

Ammarik, the gloaming, in the Finnish mythology, 376.

Anaximenes, on the overhead rotation of the sky, 72.

Aṅgirasâm-ayanam, the yearly sacrificial session of Aṅgirases 148, 177, 193.

Aṅgirases, ancient sacrificers of the Aryan race, 147; probably Indo-European in origin, 148; different species of, the Navagvas and the Dashagvas, 149; ten months’ sacrifical session of the latter, 150; helping Indra in the rescue of the end of each year, 150; found the cows at the sun dwelling in darkness, 150; described as Virûpas, that is, of various forms, 154.

Angra Mainyu, the evil spirit in the Avesta, destroys Airyana Vaêjo by introducing severe winter therein, 334; explained as a glacial invasion, 343ƒ.

Anquetil, discovery of the Avesta by, 330

countries, 8; transition from one into another gradual and not sudden, 8; distinction between New and Old stone age, 9; ages of Beech, Oak and Fir, 11; the date of the commencement of the Neolithic age in, 12; latest researches in, effect of, on primitive history, 3; on Vedic interpretation, 6; summary of the latest researches in, 35, 36.

Arctic regions, characterized by mild climate suitable for human habitation in inter-glacial times, 22, 35, 389; a wide continent before the glacial epoch, 39; appearance of the heavens in, 48, 52; duration of day and night in, 51, 52; dawn in, 52, 53; distinguishing characteristics of, summed up, 54-55.

Ardhau, the two celestial hemispheres in the Ṛig-Veda, 244.

Ardvi Sûra Anâhita, Avestic celestial river, like the Vedic Sarasvatî, 246, 248; grants a boon to Thraêtaona, 247, 374.

Aristotle, mentions an aerial river, 256; his belief in the reality of the deluge, 361,

Arya, Indra, dealing measure for measure to Dâsa or Vṛitra, 128, 131.

Âryabhaṭṭa, 392.

Aryan, race and people, their unity in primitive times, 2; controversy regarding the original type of, 15; Vedic, settled in central Asia in the Orion period, 391; primitive, interglacial and not post-glacial in origin, 402; European Neolithic, not progressive but retrogressive savages, 408; origin of and differentiation from his hidden home in waters and darkness, 294; as child of waters, 294; traversing the universe, 309; his secret third station, 309; seven rays or tongues, and ten secret dwellings of, 318.

Agniṣhṭoma, a Soma-sacrifice, 190

Ahalyâ, the legend of, 327.

Ahanî, Day and Night, distinguished from Uṣhâsâ-naktâ, 124; right and left side of the Year-god, 126-127.

Ahîna, a Soma-sacrifice of less than thirteen days, 190.

Ahura Mazda, warning Yima about the coming winter in Airyana Vaêjo, 67, 330.

Airyana Vaêjo, the original Paradise of the Iranians or the Aryan race, Yima’s Vara in, 67; description of, in the Vendidad, 332-334; wrongly identified with countries to the east of Iran, 335-337; change in the climate of, caused by Angra Mainyu, 341; proves its invasion by ice during the last Glacial epoch, 343; ten winter months therein, 341-343; also seven summer months, 345 ƒ; annual rise of sun, moon and stars, and a year-long day at the place, 66, 67, 350; possible only if it be located in the Arctic regions, and not to the east of Iran, 352; description of the glaciation of, 355.

Aitihâsikas, their school of Vedic interpretation, 221.

Âpaḥ, waters, distinguished as terrestrial and celestial in the Ṛig-Veda, 237; celestial or aerial ridden for ten months by the sun, 163, 170; ruled over by Varuṇa, 163; coeval with the world, 239; captivated by Vṛitra and released to flow upwards by Indra, cannot but be celestial, 255, 273, 274; in the seven rivers must be celestial, 267-272; cosmic circulation of the aerial, in the Avesta, 252; cessation of their flow in winter, 252-254; cosmic circulation of, in other mythologies, 255-258; their nature and characteristics as a Vedic deity summed up, 315; the same compared the Purâṇic legends, 316.

Apaosha, the demon conquered by Tishtrya, an Avestic proto-type of Shuṣhṇa in the Ṛig-Veda, 205, 206; fight with, lasting for a hundred nights, 207.

Apaturia, ancient Greek feast, 371.

Apollon, oxen of, stolen by Hermes, 188; derived from Sanskrit apavaryan, 237.

Apsu-jit, conqueror in waters, an epithet of Indra, 228-229.

Aptoryâma, a Soma-sacrifice, 190.

Ap-tûrya, the fight for waters by Indra, 228.

Âptya, See Trita.

Arag, See Rangha.

Archaeology, prehistoric, ages of Iron, Bronze and stone in, 3, 8; characterized by instruments of metals and stone discovered in the recent strata of the earth, 7; ages not synchronous in different other human races, lost in geological antiquity, 414.

— Home, primitive, cannot be located in Central Asia, 17; nor in North Germany or Scandinavia, 380; must be located in the Arctic regions, 215, 275, 363, 380, 387-389; destroyed during the last Glacial epoch, 354, 355 migration therefrom at the beginning of the post-glacial period, 399.

— Culture and religion, primitive, Schrader’s view of, 2; in their Arctic Home, 405-408; higher than the Neolithic European, 408-412.

— Languages, unity of, 2; not developed from the Finnic, 17; not of Neolithic origin, 408; origin of, lost in geological antiquity, 414.

Âshvina-shastra, a prize, in the race of matutinal deities, 76, 77, 278.

Ashvins, a dual matutinal deity in the Veda, their path, 68; time of singing the hymn or prayer of, 76; rescuers of Dîrghatamas, 156-157; physicians of gods, explained by Max Müller as restorers of the winter sun, 226, 278; their double equipment, boat and golden chariot, 257; help Indra in his fight with Vṛitra, 277-278; their exploits and character, 280-282; save their protégés from bottomless darkness, 282-283; inexplainable by the vernal theory, 283-289; safely deliver Saptavadhri from ten months’ confinement in the womb of his mother, 290-293; satisfactorily explained by the Arctic theory, 297; there three stations, the third hidden, explained, 309-310; their achievements said to be ancient, that is, inter-Glacial, 427.

Asia, Northern, the glaciation of, and milder climate in, 13; Central, the theory of the original Aryan home in, challenged by Poshe and Penka, 4; Taylor’s view, 4; Rhys’ view 380; Indo-Iranian settlements in, not primitive, 363, 390.

Astral, theory, to explain Vedic myths, 227.

Astronomers, Hindu, locate Meru at the North Pole, 62; chronology of, 392.

Atharvan, an ancient sacrificer, 147-148.

Ati-agniṣhṭoma, a Soma-sacrifice, 190, Ati-râtra, a Soma-sacrifice, 190; introduces and concludes a sattra, 192, 212; one of the night-sacrifices, 196-197, 299, extraction and purification of Soma juice therein at night, 196-197; an Avestic parallel, 197; meaning of ati in, 209; production of a cycle of day and night therefrom, 209; position of, in the annual round of sacrifices in ancient times, 212-213.

Atri, an ancient sacrificer, 147-148.

Atri Saptavadhri, See Ashvins, and Saptavadhri.

Aufrecht, Prof., 80, 82, 429.

Aurora Borealis, 44, 64.

Aupamanyava, a Nairukta, correctness of his interpretation of shipi-viṣhṭa, 306, 307, 308.

Aurṇavâbha, 303.

Autumnal, hundred forts of Vṛitra, meaning of, 204, 230, 234, 267.

Autumns, a hundred, 362.

Avesta, passages in, See Index of Avestic passages. Traditions about the Polar home in, 18, 329-363; method of counting by seasons in, 265; See Airyana Vaêjo.

Âyus, a Soma-sacrifice, 190.

Azi-Dahâk, 248, 286, 287.

BÂDARÂYANA, on the inauspiciousness of dying in the Dakṣhiṇâyana, 70; on the eternity of the Vedas, 428.

Balder, or Baldur, the Norse summer god, his dwelling place in the heavens, 375; killed by Hodur, the winter-god, 377.

Bali, the rescuer of Dîrghatamas, 156; Purâṇic enemy of Vâmana, 304.

Ball, Sir Robert, supports Croll’s theory, 25; but refrains from adopting Croll’s calculations, 32.

Beech age, 11; See Ages.

Bhâṇdârkar, Dr., on the date of Mâdhariputta and Puḷumâyi, 264.

Bhartṛihari, 316.

Bhâskara, Bhaṭṭa, 182, 204.

Bhâskarâchârya, on perpetual day and night, 52; his erroneous view about Uttarâyaṇa, 62.

Bhîṣhma, a Mahabharata warrior waiting to die in the Uttarâyaṇa, 70.

Bhṛigu, an ancient sacrificer, 148, 249.

Bhujyu, a protégé of the Ashvins who rescued him from bottomless darkness, 280, 282, 283, 284-287.

Bloomfield, Prof., 105, 267.

Bodas, Râjârâma Shâstri, and M. R. 414.

Brahma-chârin, the sun in the Atharva-Veda, 293.

Brahma-jâyâ, the Brahmin’s lost wife, restoration of, 323.

Brâhmaṇas, the Vedic works, the Vedas partially unintelligible at the time of their composition, 5; classification of the contents of, 119; their probable aim and nature, 119-120; on the eternity of the Vedas, 416.

Bṛihaspati, the son of Angiras, said to be seven-mouthed, 155; his conquest of cows, 186; helps Indra in the rescue of cows, from Vala, 231; savior of Trita from distress, 311; seven-mouthed, and ten-headed, 318; connected with the story of Sarmâ and Paṇis, 322; restoration of his lost wife, 322.

Bronze, age, See Ages.

Bundahish, referred to or quoted, 207, 247, 250, 336-338, 348.

Bunsen, 330, 340, 342.

Burma, Indian names of cities in, 272.

CACUS, a Greek monster like the Vedic Vala, 184.

Calendar, Vedic, in the Taittiriya Saṁhitâ, of 12 months and six seasons, 58; ancient sacrificial, of ten months, 212, 214, 215; Ancient Roman, of ten months, 283, 213, 368: ancient Celtic and Norse, 370-371; ancient Greek, 371; primitive Aryan, Arctic, 40, 406.

Calends, of May and of Winter, 368, 369.

Caspian, sea, wrongly identified with Rangha, 338.

Celts, the yearly feasts of, 369; their gods and heroes, 378ƒ.

Chailu, Paul Du. on the long night at Nordkyn, 53; his Lana of the long night referred to 198.

Chalceia, an ancient Greek yearly feast, 371.

Chaturvirṁsha, a sacrificial day 192, 193,

Chatvâriṁshayâm sharadi, on the fortieth in autumn, the meaning of (in Rig. II, 12, 11) 260.

Chavee, on the original type of the Aryan race, 15.

Chronology, Purâṇic, of Kalpa Manvantaras, and Maha-yugas 391; length of a Kalpa, and a Yuga in 392; Raṇgâchârya’s and Aiyer’s views thereon, 393-396 in Manu and Mahâbhârata, 396, 397.

— Vedic, 391, 421, 422.

Chyavâna the failing (sun), a protégé of the Ashvins who restored him to youth, 156, 226, 280-281.

Circum-polar, regions, distinguished from the Polar, 40; characteristics of, described and summed up, 51-56.

Civilization, Paleolithic and Neolithic, 15, 16; primitive as deduced from comparative philology, 401; original Vedic or Aryan, inter-glacial, 408-412.

Climate, geological, equable and uniform over the whole earth till the end of the Pliocene period, 20; sudden change in, during the Pleistocene, 21; cold in the glacial, and mild in the interglacial period, 22, 23.

Coins, bronze, in use amongst undivided Aryans, 411.

Comparative, Mythology and Philology, q.v.

Couvade the Irish custom of 306, 317, 379

Corpses, the custom of not disposing of during winter, 67-71, 252-255

Cows, the three fold meaning of in the Vedas, 185, 186; the sacrificial session of lasting for ten months 178-182; its nature explained, 185 ƒ.

Cow-stable, seven-fold and ten-fold 319

Cow’s Walk, See Gavam ayanam.

Croll, Dr., his theory about the cause of the Glacial period, 25-29; his three periods of the maximum eccentricity of the earth’s orbit, 30 his estimate of the duration and commencement of the Glacial period, 31 questioned by Ball and Newcomb, 31 by Geikie and Huddlestone, 33.

Cuchulainn, the Celtic Sun-hero making love to a number of Dawns, 371, 373; his encounters with the Fomori or the Fir Bolg, 397; unaffected by couvade, 378; fighting without rest for several days, 378, 379.

Culture, primitive, See Civilization.

Currents, oceanic and aerial, effects of, on climate, 20.

DAITYA, the meaning of, in the Vendidad, 332, 337; a river in the Bundahish, otherwise called Dâitik, 337, 333

Darkness, of the Polar night nature of, 44; ghastly and sunless, as Vṛitra’s stronghold, in the Ṛig-Veda, 115, 229; long, too long, the end of, 115; Agni living long in, 116, 295; Indra driving the Asuras from, 197; Arctic, synchronous with winter, 253-259; daily and annual struggle between it and light, 224, 215, 378; protégés of the Ashvins condemned to, 282, 283; the sun dwelling in, 298, 299.

Dakshinâ, the mother of the sun, 132.

Dakṣhiṇâyana, or Pitṛiyâna, night of gods, 63; death during, inauspicious, 70; Bâdarâyaṇa’s view of, 70; parallel tradition in the Avesta, 71.

Darmesteter, Prof., the translator of Vendidad and Yasht, his rendering of the Vendidad I and II, 67; on the nature of the legend of Tishtrya, 206; does not explain why the appointed time of Tishtrya varies from one to a hundred nights, 207; his rendering of Tîr Yasht, para 36, 209; his view of the same single source of waters and light, 209; on the cessation of the flow of waters in winter, 252; on the transference of the name Hapta hindu to a new settlement, 272; on the meaning of Dâitya in Vend. I, 337; his identification of the Airyana Vaêjo examined and rejected, 335-340

Dâsa, Vṛitra, 128, 131.

Dashadyu, a protégé of Indra, 317, 322.

Dashagvas, a species of the Aṅgirases, 318-320; See Navagvas.

Dashamâya, an enemy of Indra, 317, 321

Dashame yuge, meaning of (in Ṛig. I, 158, 6), 157.

Dasha prapitve, meaning of (in Ṛig Veda VI., 31, 3), 299-303.

Dâsharâjña, Indra’s fight with ten kings, 321ƒ.

Dasharatha, 323,

Dashashipra, an enemy of Indra, 318.

Dashoṇi, an enemy of Indra, 317, 321.

Dawn, two months’ duration of, at the pole, 44, 45; revolving splendors of, 46, 47; why styled Dakṣhiṇâ, 133; the first; commencing the mânushâ-yugâ, 163; why addressed in the plural number in the Vedas, 88ƒ; in the Lettish, Greek and Celtic mythologies, 366; the dying torch of, in the Finnish mythology, 376; as a Vedic Deity, See Uṣhas.

Dawn-theory, 3; its scope and application, 222-224.

Day, longer than 24 hours in the Arctic regions, 51; six-monthly, in the Tâittiriya Brâhmaṇa, 65; in the Avesta, 66; in Manu and Mahâbhârata, 63, 64; originally a real observation, 68; of the gods, See Night of the gods.

Day and Night, a dual deity in the Vedas, 120; two such dual deities 124; diurnal changes in, over the globe stated, 125; the existence of two dual deities explainable only on the Arctic theory, 125, 126.

Death, inauspiciousness of, in the Dakṣhiṇâyana, 70; in winter in the Parsi scriptures, 252-253.

Debris, glacial, its action and extent, 22.

December, the tenth and the last month in the ancient Raman year, its reason explained, 183, 367; denotes an ancient Arctic year of ten months, 184.

Deities, Vedic, pre-glacial in origin and character, 403,

Deluge, the Avestic account of, 353ƒ; the story of, in the Shatapatha Brâhmaṇa, 358; said to be of water and not ice, 360; Greek account of, 361; compared with the Avestic, account 362; See Glacial period.

Demeter, the mother-earth rejoicing for six months in the presence of Proserpine, 370,

Deukaliôn, saved from the deluge in Greek mythology, 361.

Devayâna and Pitriyana originally representing the two-fold division of the year at the Pole, 67, 68; the path of the gods, same as the path of Mazda in the Avesta, 69; Vṛitra killed on the borders of, 233

Dhîtis, prayers, seven-fold and ten-fold, 318.

Dîrghatamas, the legend of, in the Mahâbhârata, 156; in the Ṛig-Veda, id; saved by Ashvins, 156; becoming decrepit in the tenth yuga, 157ƒ; means the sun disappearing after riding on aerial waters for ten months, 163; a solar legend of Arctic origin, 163, 214, 238, 284, 296, 326.

Divine, years, the theory of, 393-397; See year.

Diviṣhṭi, striving for the day, 228.

Divodâsa, the father of Sudâs, 321.

Dixit, the late Mr. S. B., on the equinox in the Kṛittikâs, 42, 392.

Durga, a commentator on Yâska, 123.

Dvâdashâha, a twelve days’ sacrifice, how made up, 192.

Dvâpara, the third yuga in Puraṇic mythology, duration and nature of, 392-396.

Dvita, the Second, a brother of Tṛita, 311.

Dyotana, an enemy of Indra, 318.

EARTH, classification of stratified rocks on the surface of, 10; climate on, in early geological times, 20; obliquity of its axis producing seasons, id., change in the position of axis improbable, 23-24; diminishing heat of, 24; eccentricity of its orbit producing glacial periods, according to Dr. Croll, 26, 27; Dr. Ball’s estimate of the average heat received by each of its hemispheres, 32; maximum value of the eccentricity of its orbit, 67; three-fold in the Vedas and the Avesta, 242; seven-fold, nine-fold and ten-fold, 318.

Edda, a Norse epic poem, death of Anses in 378.

Eden, the garden of, in the Bible, 381.

Egypt, the historic period in, 1, 11, 13, 34; no trace of glaciation in, 13.

Ekâha, a Soma-sacrifice for a single day, 190.

Ekâṣhṭakâ, the mother, 108.

Ekata, the First, Tṛita, 311.

Eleven-fold, division of gods in Vedas, 269, 319.

Equinoxes, precision of, 26; cycle of, 27; used as a Vedic chronometer, 41.

Eras, geological, climate 20; See Ages.

Euripides, on the fountain of the world’s waters, 256.

Evans, 7.

FATHERS, our ancient, in the Vedas, 147.

Fauna, and Flora, fossil, distinguish different geological eras, 10; indicate warm climate early times, 20.

Fedelm, of nine forms, in Celtic mythology, 373

Finland, once thought to be the Aryan home, 381, 388.

Finns, not the originators of the Aryan speech, 17, 19; the circulation of cosmic waters in the mythology of, 257.

Fir-age, archaeological, xi.

Fir-Bolg, See Fomori.

Fish, the, saved by Manu and in turn the savior of Manu, 358;

Five, milkings, 109; seasons, 167ƒ.

Floods, during deluges, probably glacial in origin, 359.

Fomori, the Irish representatives of darkness, 377.

Foods, seven and ten, 318.

Forseti, Baldur’s son, his long sittings at the court, 380.

Fravashis, showing the path of Mazda to the sun, 69-70; correspond to Vedic Pitṛis, 254; said to have shown the way to the waters and the sun in the Avesta, 254.

GAVÂM-AYANAM, a ten-months’ yearly sacrifice, or the Cow’s Walk, 149; of ten months in the Aitareya Brâhmaṇa, 179; in the Tâittirîya Saṁhitâ, 180, 181; its ten months’ duration said to be an immemorial custom, 182; represents the ancient Arctic year, 184; compared with the old Roman year of ten months, 184; meaning of cows (gavâm) in, 185-187; the type of yearly sacrifices, 192; an outline scheme of, 192; supplemented by night-sacrifices, 199ƒ, 211, 214, 367.

Geikie, Prof., 7; on the commencement of the post-Glacial period, 13; five glacial and four inter-Glacial periods according to, 22, 33 35; on the Glacial and inter-Glacial climate in the Arctic regions, 22-23; on Dr. Croll’s theory, 32.

Geldner, Prof., 301.

Geology, eras and periods in, enumerated and described, 10, 11, co-relation of geological and archaeological ages, 10; Iron-Bronze and Neolithic included in the post-Glacial period and Paleolithic in the Pleistocene or the Glacial, 10; the date of the commencement of the post-Glacial period in, 11; evidence and extent of glaciation in the Glacial period, 12, 22; climate in the early ages of, 20-23; causes of a succession of Glacial periods in, 23; Dr. Croll’s view 26-31; estimate of the duration of the Glacial period, 34; latest researches in, summary of, 34, 35, 36; supports the Avestic account of the deluge of snow and ice, 355-356; See Archaeology, Climate, Glacial period.

Gharma, a sacrificial pot, 174-175.

Ghoṣhâ, a protégé of the Ashvins, 281.

Gilbert, Mr., his view regarding the commencement of the post-Glacial period, 12.

Giri, a mountain, misinterpretation of, See Parvata.

Glacial, epoch or period, discovery of its evidence, 4; nature of the evidence of, 21; existence of two, with an intervening inter-Glacial, conclusively established, 22; extent of Glaciation in Europe and America, 21; climate cold in Glacial, warm in inter-Glacial, 22; various theories regarding the cause of, 23; Lyell’s theory and estimate about its duration, 24; Croll’s theory and estimate about its duration, 25-31; long duration of, 34; Avestic evidence in proof of 353 ƒ.

Glaciation, in northern Europe and America, 12, 21; traces of, not yet discovered in northern Asia, 13.

Go, a Soma-sacrifice, 191.

Gods, the six-monthly night of, in astronomical works, 62; in Manu and Mahâbhârata, 63-64; in the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, 65; in the Ṛig-Veda, 67-70; in other Aryan mythologies, 72; eleven-fold division of, in the, Vedas, 269, 319; temporary sickness or affliction of in ancient mythology, 378-380.

Go-iṣhṭi, the meaning of, 228.

Gotama, a Vedic sage, 322.

Grassmann, Prof., 157, 301.

Griffith, Mr., his interpretation of Ṛig-Vedic verses stated and examined, 80, 82, 84, 92, 106, 122, 128, 129, 160, 165.

Grill, on the German world-river, 256.

Grote, his account of deluge in the Greek mythology, 361.

Gulf-stream, its effect on climate, 20, 23.

Gwin, and Gwythur, fighting for the same damsel and having her in turn, 370.

HADES, conceived as turned upside down, 285.

Hanûmân, a Purâṇic deity, traced to Vriṣhâkapi, 324.

Hapta-Hindu, Avestic name for Sapta Sinndhavaḥ, its origin and meaning explained, 267-272; See Sapta Sindhavaḥ.

Hara-Berezaiti, a mountain in the Avesta; See Alburz.

Haug, Dr., 138, 330, 423.

Heavens, spinning round of, in the Ṛig-Veda, 60.

Hebrews, their belief in the existence of celestial waters, 238, 246.

Heeren, Prof., 330.

Hêlios, the sun, his 350 oxen and sheep, 186, 288, 367; sailing from west to east in a golden boat, 255.

Hemispheres, the two celestial, upper and lower, referred to and mentioned in the Ṛig-Veda, 243-244.

Hemanta, with Shishira, the dual season, 168; represented the yearly sunset, 263.

Hêrakles, names of the wives of, representing dawns, 366.

Hercules, the pillars of, 133; the cows of, carried off, by Cacus, 184.

Hermes, stealing the oxen of Apollon 188.

Herodotus, mentions people sleeping for six months, 66; his account of the Phoenician mariners sailing round Africa, 133.

Herschel, Sir, on seasons, 27; error in his view regarding the heat received by each hemisphere in summer and winter, 29; on the perpetual spring in inter-Glacial times, 35.

Hesiod, on the source of earthly rivers, 266.

Himâlayas, the, upheaved in later geological ages, 20.

Hiraṇya-hasta, the gold hand, given by the Ashvins, 281, 289.

Historic period, in Greece and Egypt, 1.

Hodur, the blind Norse god of winter, killing Baldur, the god of summer, 377.

Home, the primeval Aryan, not in Central Asia, 17, 380; nor in Finland or Scandinavia, 380-381; but in the Arctic-regions, north of Siberia, in pre-Glacial times, 388, 390; See Airyana Vaêjo.

Homer, Iliad and Odyssey, 72; his legend of cow-stealing, 188; on the shape of the earth, 255, on the circulation of aerial waters, 256; draw from the same mythological source as Vâlmîki, 324; mentions Khalkos or bronze coins, 411.

Horses, of the sun, sevenfold and tenfold, 169, 317.

Hudleston, Mr., on the extravagance of Dr. Croll’s calculations, 33.

Hukairya, mountain in the Avesta, 247.

Hundred, night-sacrifices, 195-200 fortresses or cities destroyed by Indra, leather straps of Kutsa, 204; inoving in the abode of Indra, and turning on and off the course of ordinary days, 204.

Hvarenô, the, Glory in the Avesta, 286.

Hymns, Vedic, inter-Glacial in substance, post-Glacial in form, 427-430.

ICE, of the Glacial period, its action, 22; invading Airyana Vaêjo, 353-354; its connection with the deluge in Indian mythology, 360.

Iliad, the nature of day in, 72, mythical element in, traceable to primitive Aryan times, 324; mentions bronze coins, 411.

Incarnations, ten of Indra in the Avesta and of Viṣhṇu in the Purâṇas, 317, 325.

Indra, the principal Vedic deity, revolving the heavens as on a pole, 60-61; breaking the car of the dawn, 101; fights with his enemies in darkness, 115, 197; retaliates Dâsa’s mischief by producing the long Arctic day, 128-131; assisted by Navagvas and Dashagvas, 149; his war with Vala at the end of the year, 150, 151, 259; the only deity worshipped in the Atirâtra sacrifice, 197; master of a hundred sacrifices, 200-205; his conquest over Vṛitra and release of captive waters, the sun and the dawn, 227-259; as Vṛitra-han, 234, 275; finds Shambara on the fortieth of Sharad, 259-261; stealing the solar orb, on the completion of ten (months), 298-303; assisted by Viṣhṇu in his fight with Vṛitra, 305, tenfold or ten incarnations of, 317, seven-killer, and possibly ten-killer, 322; lover of Ahalyâ, 322; exploits of, said to be ancient or inter-Glacial, 427, 101; See Âpas, Dashagvas, Vala, Vṛitra.

Inter-Glacial, period, See Glacial.

Irân Veg, See Airyana Vaêjo.

Iranians, their original home, 331, could not but be Arctic, 342; destroyed during the glacial period, 357, See Airyana Vaêjo.

Iron, age, See Ages.

Ivan, the story of, 376.

JAIMINI, his view about the eternity of the Vedas, 417-418.

Jaxartes, the, and the Oxus, Aryan settlements on the banks of, 34, 329, 336. 351

Jews, See Hebrews.

Jhalkikar, Mahâmahopâdhyaya, 419.

Jimha-bâra, with mouth downwards, applied to the nether world, 284, 285.

Jyotish, or Jyotishṭoma, a Soma-sacrifice, 190-193.

KALI, a protégé of the Ashvins, 280-281.

Kali-Yuga, commencement, duration and nature of, 392-397; the age of final settlements, 423.

Kalidasa, 134.

Kalpa, a higher unit of time in the Purâṇic chronology, 392, 393; repromulgation of the Vedas at the beginning of each, 420, 425.

Kamadyu, a protégé of the Ashvins, 280.

Kânheri, an inscription of, 265.

Kaṇva, an ancient sacrificer, 747.

Kârle, inscriptions of, method of counting time in, 264.

Karma-devatas, 220.

Kârttikeya, See Kumara.

Kashyapa, the eighth Aditya at Meru, 65.

Kata, a ditch to keep a dead body in, during winter, 71; Kutsa lying in, 254.

Khalkos, a bronze coin, phonetically identical with Shulka, 411.

Kings, seven and three, 319.

Koi, the dawn, in the Finnish mythology, 376.

Koshchei, the Russian winter-demon carrying off a princess, 376; legend of, 376.

Kratu, means a destined course, 95, 107; also denotes a sacrificial performance, 203.

Krichenbauer, Anton, on the two-fold nature of day in the Iliad and the Odyssey, 72.

Kṛita, Yuga, commencement and duration of, 392-396; the age of migration, 423.

Kṛittikâs, or the Pleiades, the period of the vernal equinox being in, 42, 58, 120, 390, 422.

Kubhâ, the Kabul river, 338

Kuhn, Prof., 186; on the storm theory, 225.

Kuka, Mr. M. N., on Tishtrya’s connection with the year, 209.

Kumâra, the Child, not surrendered by the mother to the father, the story of, 294; basis of the Purâṇic story of Kârttikeya, 296.

Kumârila, his interpretation of the legend of Ahalyâ, 222, 322.

Kutsa, lying in a kata or a winter grave, 254.

LABRAID of the Swift Hand on the Sword; King of the Irish Hades, 371.

Laing, Mr. Samuel, 7; on man’s ultimate origin, 413.

Lake-dwellers, in Switzerland, 11.

Land and water, distribution of, in early geological ages, 20-22; depression and elevation of, causing the Ice-age, 25.

Lands, countries, sixteen, mentioned in the Vendidad, 332-334; represent successive historical migrations and not merely geographical divisions, 357.

Lapps, how they count time during long night, 198.

Lassen, Prof., 269, 330, 362.

Lets, cosmic circulation of waters in the mythology of, 257; dawn addressed in the plural in the same, 367.

Leverrier, M., his tables of the eccentricity of earth’s orbit, 30; Stockwell’s corrections therein, 31.

Lignana, Prof., his view about the Navagvas and Dashagvas stated and examined, 152-154; on Numa’s reform, 367; on Navagvas and Novemsides, 373.

Lockyer, Sir Norman, ors the orientation of the pyramids, 42; on the ancient Egyptian calendar, 137; on the cosmic circulation of aerial waters in: the Egpytian mythology, 258.

Logos, the Word, 418-419, 426.

Lubbock, Sir John, 7.

Ludwig, Prof., on the axis of the earth in the Ṛig-Veda, 61; on the meaning of Ahâni, 84; on the seven rivers, 269.

Lugnassad, the Celtic summer feast, 369.

Lybia, Africa, sailing round of, 133.

Lyell, Sir Charles, 7; his theory of the cause of the Glacial period, and estimate of its duration, 24, on the origin of the tradition of the half-yearly day, 67.

MACDONNELL, Prof., on the nature of the dawn-hymns, 75; extracts from his Vedic mythology quoted, 28, 230, 280; his view on the double character of Indra discussed, 231, 236; on the brothers of Thrâetaona, 312.

Macrobius, on Numa’s reform in the Roman Calendar, 183, 368.

Mâdhava, a commentator on the Sâma Veda, on the meaning of virûpe, 122, 123.

Mahâvrata, a Soma-sacrifice, symbolic nature of, 192, 193.

Mahâbhârata, the, 64, 70, 156, 157, 307, 358, 359, 362, 392, 395, 396, 416.

Mahavira, a sacrificial pot, 175.

Mahayuga, a collection of Yugas, its duration discussed, 394ƒ.

Mahîdhara, a commentator on the Vajasaneyî Saṁhita, 161, 301.

Maid, the, of nine forms, 374.

Mainvô-i-Khard, 357.

Mallinâth, 734.

Mamata, the mother of Dîrghatamas, 156-157.

Man, his existence in the quaternary and the tertiary eras, 4, 11, 35.

Mann, a Smṛiti writer quoted, 63, 64, 238, 407, progenitor of the human race, saved in the deluge, 358-360; an ancient Vedic sacrificer, 147-148.

Mânuṣhâ yugâ, means human ages and not always human generations, 158-162; commenced with the first dawn, used to denote the whole year, 166.

Mârtâṇda, the still-born Aditya, the derivation and meaning of, 145; See Aditi, Âditya.

Mâtsya-Purâṇa, account of the deluge in, 358.

Matutinal, deities, traveling by the Devayâna path, 68-69; following the dawns, 98; the story of the Ashvins leading the van in the march of, 277, 280.

Max Müller, Prof. F., on the importance of the discovery of relationship between Sanskrit and Zend, 2; on the untranslatable portion of the Vedas, 5; on the meaning of Samayâ 79, his explanation of dawns in the plural number unsatisfactory, 88; on the meaning of yojana, 96; of chhandas, 106, of kshapaḥ, 117, on the difference between Uṣhâsânaktâ and Ahanî, 124; his explanation of eight Âdityas improbable, 143; on the meaning of mânuhâ yugâ, 159; on continuous nights, 166; on the threefold meaning of cows in the Ṛig-Veda, 185-186; on the stealing of cows inn the Greek mythology and on the ancient Greek year, 188-189; on the dawn theory, 223-224; on the Vernal theory, 226; on the derivation of; Apollon, 237; on seven rivers, 269, his explanation of the Ashvins’ exploits, 163, 278; his derivation of Trita improbable, 312; on the resemblance of names in the Iliad with Vedic names, 324; on progressive savages, 412; on Logos, 418.

May, the calends of, 370, 371.

Mazda, the path of, 69; followed by waters and the sun, 246.

Meru, or the North Pole, six months’ day at, in the Saṁhitâs, 52; seat of the gods, and six monthly night and day at, 62, 458, 421; in the Taittirîya Âraṇyaka, 6; permanently illumined by Kaṣhyapa, 142.

Merv, the Avestic Mouru, 334.

Mesopotamia, not the same as Avestic Rangha, 336.

Migrations, of the Iranian race in succession from Airyana Vaêjo, 335-358; the age of, 421, 423.

Milkings, five, 109.

Mîmaṁsakas, their interpretation of Râtri in Râtri-Sattras shown to be incorrect, 195ƒ; their view of the eternity of the Vedas, 417-418.

Mitra, the representative of half-year long light, 326.

Monogeny, the theory of, regarding human origin, 413.

Months, of sunshine, less than twelve in the Arctic regions, 53, 138; sacrificial session of ten, 176, 132; Avestic, of winter and summer, 345-348; See Dashame yuge, Gavâm ayanam, Seasons Year and Yuga.

Moon, description of her appearance at the pole, 44.

Mortillet, M. De., on the type of the primitive Aryans, 15.

Moytura, the battle of, in the Celtic mythology, fought on the eve of November, 371.

Much, with vi, meaning of, when applied to horses, 129.

Muir, Dr., on the yuga system, 63, on the nature of dawn-hymns, 75; on Aditi’s legend, 143, 158; on the meaning of parastât, 245; his summary of Fargard I of the Vendidad, 332, 333; on the deluge, 353-360; on the northern Aryan home, 362, 363; on the eternity of the Vedas, 414, 416, 417, 426, 429.

Myths, Vedic, necessity of re-examining the explanations of, 39 various theories about the explanations of, 222 ƒ; disclose an arctic origin, 326, 327.

Mythology, science of, effect of recent geological discovery on, 3, 4; Vedic, current interpretation of, 49; theories for the explanation of, 222, comparative, supports the theory of the Arctic home, 282, 283.

NADERSHAHA, Mr. E. J. D., on the method of counting time by seasons in the Avesta, 266.

Nâgoji Bhatt, on Patañjali’s view on the eternity of the Vedas, 420.

Nairukta, a school of Vedic interpreters, 221, 222.

Naiyyâyikas, their views about the eternity of Vedas, 419.

Navagvas, a species of the Angirases, generally associated with the Dashagvas, 148, their sacrificial session of ten months, 149; commenced with the dawn, id., helped Indra in the rescue of the cows from Vala, 150-151; the root meaning of, 152; Yâska’s, Sayaṇa’s and Prof. Lignana’s view thereon, 152, 153; primarily denote sacrificers for nine or ten months, 153; compared to Roman Novemsides, Celtic Maid of nine Forms, and the nine steps of Thor in the Norse mythology, 373, See Angirases, Dashagvas.

Nava-prabhrainshana, the gliding of the ship on the Himalayas, 359.

Navarâtra, a nine days’ sacrifice, 190.

Nau-bandhana, a peak of the Himalayas, 359.

Nebulous, matter, in the universe described as watery vapor in the Vedas, 238.

Neco, Pharoah, king of Egypt, 133.

Neolithic, the new Stone age, distinguished from the Paleolithic age, 9; its probable commencement from 5000 B. C., 11.

— Aryan races in Europe, dolicho-cephalic and brachy-cephalic, ancestors of the present European races, 14; their culture compared with Indo-Germanic culture, 16; not autochthonous in Europe, 16.

Nether, regions, or regions below the earth, known to Vedic bards, 241; conceived as dark, bottomless, or like an inverted tub in the Vedas, 284-287

Newcomb, Prof., on the extravagance of Croll’s calculations, 31.

Night, Polar, light and darkness, 229; rivers, 204, in, 44; shorter than six months, but longer than twenty-four hours, 51; of the gods in the Vedas and the Avesta, 153, 159; long, safely reaching the other end of 117; apprehensions regarding its end, 118; continuous, 166.

Night-sacrifices, See Râtri-sattras and Atirâtra.

Nine, Forms, Maid of, 374.

Nine-fold, earth, ocean and sky, 319; See Sevenfold.

Ninety-nine, forts of Vṛitra, 204, crossed by Indra, 204.

Nir-riti, the region below the earth, 243.

Nivids, about Indra, quoted, 228.

Non-Aryan, races, may be Arctic in origin, 380, 399.

Nordkyn, or the North Cape in Europe, sixty-seven days’ continuous night at, 53.

North Pole, Dr. Warren’s book on the origin of the human race at, 6, 384, 399.

Novaia Zemlia, remnant of an old Polar continent, 37.

November, the eve of commencement of the ancient Celtic year, 368, 369.

Novemsides, new or nine Roman-gods, 373.

Numa, his addition of two months to the ancient Roman year of ten months, 183, 367.

Nu-t, the Egyptian goddess of the sky, 258.

OAK-AGE, 11; See Archaeology, Ages,

Odin, the reign of, 72.

Odyssey, the, nature of day in, 72,

Odysseus, consuming the oxen of Hêlios, 188.

Okeanos, the world-surrounding ocean in the Greek mythology, 256; phonetically identical with Ashayâna, 316.

Oldenburg, Prof., on continuous nights, 166; on the meaning of div-iṣhṭi 228, his view regarding Indra’s producing waters from the mountains, 235, 300.

Orion; the constellation of, the period of vernal equinox being in, 390, 422.

Ottoro-corra, the Uttara-Kurus, as mentioned by Ptolemy, 362.

Oxus, the river; Aryan settlements on, 329, 336, 351, 363; See Jaxartes.

PADA-TEXT, of the Ṛig-Veda, amendments in, suggested, 86, 300, 301, 303.

Palaeolithic or the old Stone age, distinguished from the Neolithic, 9; generally inter-glacial, 11.

— Man, inter-Glacial, 12-13; his culture, 15; proof of his existence in the interglacial period, 22, 23.

Panama, the isthmus of, its submergence in the Pleistocene period improbable, 24.

Pañcha-janâh, the five races of men, probably interglacial, 399.

Pandit, the late Mr. S. P., on the seven-fold division of Solar rays, 316.

Panjaub, the land of five rivers and not of seven, 268: rivers in, not denoted by Sapta-Sindhavaḥ, 269; See, Seven rivers.

Parâvat, the nether region, 243.

Parvata, a mountain, misinterpreted into a cloud in the Vedas, 231, 235.

Parâvrij, a protégé of the Ashvins, 281.

Patañjali, his view about the eternity of the Vedas, 421.

Pathyâ Svasti, the goddess of speech in the northern region, 362.

Peat-mosses, of Denmark, beds of beach, oak and fir therein, 11, 12.

Perpetual, spring, 38; day and night, 52.

Persephone, daughter of Zeus, carried by Pluto for six months, 370.

Penka, 4; his view on the type of the primitive Aryans in Europe, 15.

Philology, comparative, on the division of the year, 372, conclusions regarding the primitive Aryan culture, deduced therefrom, 408; necessity of modifying the same, 408-412.

Phoenician, mariners rounding Africa, 133.

Pictel, Dr., 330.

Pim, Capt., his description of the Polar year, 45.

Pipru, an enemy of Indra, 128.

Pischel, Dr., on the nature of Vṛishâkapi, 324.

Pitṛiyana, See Devayâna.

Pleiades, See Kṛittikâs.

Pleistocene, or the Giacial period 10; changes of climate in, 21, 22.

Plutarch, on the ancient Roman year, of ten months, 183, 367; on the sleep of the Phrygian god, 306, 379; on the imprisonment of the Paphagonian gods, 323, 379.

Pole, north, temperate climate at, in interglacial times 21, 39; existence of a continent at, in interglacial times, 38; regions round, distinguished from circumpolar or Arctic regions, 40; star, change in the position of, 41; special features of the calendar at, 43; characteristics or differential of Polar regions summed up, 54.

Polygeny, theory of, 413.

Posehe, 4; his view regarding the type of the primitive Aryans in Egypt, 15.

Post-glacial, period, its commencement about 50 or 60 thousand years ago according to English geologists, and 7 or 8 thousand according to American geologists, 12; See Glacial period.

Prajâpati, the creator of the Vedas, 416.

Pralaya, the deluge, destruction of the Vedas in, 416.

Prâleya, ice, an indication of the glacial nature of the deluge, 360.

Prapitva, advancing time, the meaning of, in the Veda, 301.

Pravargya, a sacrificial ceremony, represents the revival of the sun, 174.

Prehistoric times, effect of the discovery of comparative philology on the study of, 2; See Archeology, Geology.

Pre-Orion, period, its commencement, 390; consistent with geological evidence, 391.

Priṣhṭhya, a kind of Shalâha, 191-193.

Ptolemy, 362.

Pûṣhan, the sun, the golden boat of, 257, seven-wheeled and ten-rayed, 318.

Purâ, the former or the interglacial age, 102.

Puraḥ, meaning of, 204.

Purâ-kalpa, ancient rites and traditions, 119, 429.

Purûravas, 224.

QUARTERNARY, era, existence of man in, 4, 23; sudden changes of climate in, 21; comprises at least two, if not more, glacial periods, 22.

Raj s (singular), meaning of, 242; (dual), the two Rajas, meaning the two hemispheres, 244.

Râma,, the hero of the Râmâyana, 323, 324; and incarnation of Viṣhṇu, 32, traceable to the Ṛig-Veda, id.

Râmâyana, on the three steps of Viṣhṇu, 304; mythical element in, probably derived from Vedic mythology, 324; the Râmâyana and the Iliad had probably a common source, 324.

Rangâchârya, Prof., on the meaning of yuga, 163, 164; on the Kaliyuga, 392, 393.

Rangha, a mythical river to the west of Alburz in the Avesta, 338; wrongly identified with the Caspian sea, 338; probably the same as the Vedic Rasâ, 338.

Ratri-sattras, the nightly Soma-sacrifices, their nature and classification, 194; the meaning of Râtri in the appellation, 195ƒ; hundred in number, from one to hundred nights, 195; must have been originally performed (luring night, 198; the reason of the number of, 199-209.

Râtri-Sûkta, a hymn to the night, 117.

Râvaṇa, the ten-mouthed enemy of Râma, 323; throwing gods into prison, 323, probably suggested by the ten non-sacrificing kings in the Vedas, 323.

Rays, of the sun, seven and ten, 317,

Rebha, a protégé of the Ashvins 280, 281, 283.

Religion, Vedic, pre-glacial in origin, 406, 407.

Rhode, Dr., 330.

Rhys, Prof., on the nature of the ancient Teutonic year, 184; his Hibbert lectures, referred to, 306, 366-384; on the affliction of gods or sun-heroes in the Celtic mythology, 378-379; on the primeval Aryan home in the Arctic region, 380.

Ṛijishvan, a friend of Indra, 128.

Ṛijrâshva, a protégé of the Ashvins slaughtering a hundred sheep, 189, 226, 281, 287, 288.

Ṛikṣhas, or the seven bears, See Ursâ Major.

Ṛiṣhis, Vedic, their view about the origin of Vedic hymns, 426-432; distinguished into older and later, 428; older interglacial, later post, glacial, 430.

Roth, Prof., on the nature of Saraṇyu, 226.

Rudra-datta, on the meaning of Atiratra, 209.

SACRIFICE, or the year, its preservation and revival, 175; annual; an outline of the scheme of, 192, an yearly cycle of, in ancient times, 212.

Sacrificers, ancient, 147.

Samarkand, the Avestic Sughdha, 334, 336.

Samudrau, the two oceans, meaning the upper and lower celestial hemispheres, 244.

Sandhyâ, or links between the yugas, duration of, 395.

Sânkhyas, their view about the eternity of the Vedas, 419.

Saporta, M. de, on the Arctic origin of the human race, 381.

Sapta-vadhri, the seven-eunuch, a protégé of the Ashvins, 289; praying for safe delivery after ten months’ gestation, explained, 291ƒ.

Saramâ, 223.

Saraṇyu, 223.

Sarasvatî, a celestial river in the Veda, 247; described as slaying Vṛitra, 248; compared to the Avestic Ardvi Sûra Anâhita, 248.

Sato-karahe, of hundred deeds, an adjective of Verethraghna in the Avesta, 208.

Sattras, annual, in imitation of the yearly course of the sun, 138; Gavâm-ayanam, the type of the annual, 178; sacrificial sessions, division of, 190.

Satyavrata, Pandit, 122.

Savitṛi, the sun, traversing the universe, 309; his third heaven in Yama’s regions, 309.

Sâyaṇa, his method of explaining difficult Vedic passages, 5, 85, 94, 131, 387; referred to, 61, 68, 75, 82, 83, 84; on the use of dawns in the plural number, 88, 90; his explanation of thirty dawns, 93, 94, 106; on the thirty yojanas traversed by the dawn, 95; on the fears about endless nights 119-120; on meaning of virûpe, 122; on much with vi, 129-131; on the seven rays of sun, 140; on the existence of the different suns in different quarters, 142; on the meaning of Navagvas and Dashagvas, 154; on mânushâ yugâ, 158; on kṣhapaḥ, 166; on the meaning of padena, 181; on the duration of Gavâm-ayanam, 182; on night-sacrifices, 196, on the meaning of shatakratu, 202; on Ati-râtra, 203; on chatvârimshyâmsharadi, 260; on the meaning of vadhri, 259, 290; on prapitve, 301, 303; on the ten-fold division, 316.

Scandinavia, supposed to be the Ancient Aryan home, 380.

Schrader, Dr., his work on prehistoric antiquities, 2; on neolithic, paleolithic culture, 15, 16; on the ancient division of the year, 372; on primitive Aryan culture and civilization, 401; on primitive Aryan religion, 406, 407; on the use of metals in primitive times, 411.

Seasons, of the year, five in older times, 167; reason of, 168; denotes an Arctic year of ten months, 170; method of counting time by, in Paleography, 265; in the Avesta, 266.

Separation, Aryan, caused by the glacial epoch, and not by overcrowding or irresistible impulse, 366.

Seven, milking the one, 175.

Seven, rivers, or Sapta-sindhavah, flowing upwards, 268; cannot be the rivers of the Panjaub, 268; three-fold, celestial, terrestrial and infernal, 269; associated with the seven rays or seven suns, 270; released by Indra, cannot but be celestial, 271.

Sevenfold, 146, 270; and tenfold division of things in Vedas explained on the Arctic theory, 316, 321.

Shabara, a commentator on Jaimini, 195, 263.

Shaḷaha, a group of six days, a sacrificial unit of time, 192.

Shambara, killed by Indra on the fortieth day of autumn, 261.

Shankarâchârya, 70, 167; on the eternity of Vedas, 418

Sharad, autumn, the last season of sunshine in the ancient home, 259-261; explained etymologically, 262.

Shatakratu, an epithet of Indra, 200; means the lord of a hundred sacrifices and not of hundred powers, 202, 203; purâṇic tradition based on, 201.

Shatapatha-Brâhmaṇa, an account of deluge in, 358.

Shatarâtra, a hundred nights’ sacrifice, denotes the long Arctic night, 201.

Shâtyâyanins, on the legend of Trita, 312.

Shayu, a protégé of the Ashvins, 281, 282.

Shikshâ by Panini quoted, 94.

Shipi-vishṭa, an opprobrious name of Viṣhṇu, explained by the Arctic theory, 307, 309.

Shoḍashî, a Soma-sacrifice, 190.

Shulka, a primitive Aryan coin, 411.

Shuṣhṇa, Indra’s fight with, on the completion of ten, 299-303

Siberia, freshness of fossil deposits in, 13; primitive Aryan home to

the north of 388.

Siddhânta-Shiromaṇi, perpetual day and night in, 52.

Sita, the wife of Râma, 324 represented as his sister and wife in Buddhistic Jâtakas, 325; probable explanation of, 325.

Soma, seven-wheeled and ten-rayed, 318.

Soma-sacrifices, their classification and nature, 190ƒ; See Gâvam-ayanam, and Râtri-sattras.

South, the sun rising in, 43.

Sphoṭa, the doctrine of, 418.

Spiegel, Prof., 66, 207, 209, 330, 332, 352, 354; his identification of Airyana Vaêjo questioned, 336.

Spring, perpetual, 35, 38.

Spitzbergen, warm climate in, be fore the glacial period, 20; remnant of an old Polar continent, 37.

Stars, spinning round and round and the Pole 42, 43; motion of, in circum-polar region, 48, 49.

Stone-age See Ages, Neolithic, Paleolithic.

Storm-theory, 224, 226; its inadequacy to explain the legend of Indra and Vṛitra, 231-235.

Striæ, scratches, glacial, 21.

Sudâs, engaged in fight with the ten non-sacrificing kings, 321.

Summer, long and cool in inter-Glacial time, 30, 3

Sun, or Sûrya, shining and disappearing for six months at the Pole, 44; rising in the south, 44; a matutinal Vedic deity, 68, southern course of, in Polar regions, 49; described in the Veda as unyoking his car and halting in the midst of heaven, 128; standing still in the Bible, 129; rocking like a gold swing in the heaven, 130; different suns for different seasons, 142, 143; dwelling in darkness, 150, 151, 299; his eye covered with aerial vapor, 169; falling beyond the heaven, 178; conceived as the son of Dyu and Earth, 291; described as moving in the mother’s womb, while above the horizon, 292; his exit from the womb after ten months explained, 292; a paradox arising therefrom, 293-294; his wheel or orb, 297ƒ; his chariot a mono-cycle, 299; stolen by Indra, 301; on the completion of ten, meaning of, 300-301; See, Horses, Prapitva, Rays.

Sunshine, of less than twelve months’ duration at the Pole, 139.

Sûrya, her marriage with Soma, 223.

Sûrya-siddhânta, on six-monthly day and night, 62.

Svara-sâman, days, 192, 193.

TAYLOR, Canon, his views on the effects of recent scientific discoveries on Mythology, 4; on primitive Aryan races in Europe, 15; on the origin of the Aryan tongue, 17; on the Neolithic origin of the Aryan race, 402.

Telang, the late Mr., on the description of Râma in the Dasharatha jâtaka, 325.

Ten, kings, opponents of Sudâs, 321.

Ten-fold, See, Seven-fold.

Tertiary, era, existence of man in, 4; climate in, 20.

Till, or boulder clay, 22.

Tishtrya, his fight with Apaosha in the Avesta, 205; a reproduction of Indra’s fight with Vṛitra, 205; lasted for one hundred days, 207; special sacrifices required to be performed at the time, 208; described as bringing circling years of men, 208-209.

Thor, the Norse sun-hero, walking nine paces before being killed by the Serpent, 374.

Thraêtaona, Avestic deity, corresponding to Trita Âptya, 248; restores glory to Yima, 268; slays Azi-Dahâk, 312; accompanied by his two brothers in the Avesta, 312; throws up Vifra-Navâza, 375.

Three-fold, division of the Earth in the Veda and the Avesta, 241.

Thridi, old Norse name of Odin, same as Trita, 313.

Tongue, Aryan, not developed from the Finnic, 17; its origin lost in geological antiquity, 413.

Tradition, Pre-glacial, how preserved in the Vedas, 398-399; in the Avesta, 18, 354-356.

Traitan, the tormenter of Dîrghatamas, 156.

Tree of Varuṇa, with bottom up, 286.

Treta, the second Puraṇic era, duration of, 393-396; nature of 423.

Triath, an old Irish word for sea, phonetically same as Trita, 313.

Trita Aptya, a Vedic deity assisting Indra in his fight with Vṛitra, 248; Avestic Thraêtaona, 310, urges Indra to fight, 311; falls into a well, 311; derivation of his name, 312; Prof. Max Müller’s view untenable, 312; denotes the third part of the year 311, 313; explained on the Arctic theory, 313; compared to Ivan in the Slavonic mythology, 375.

Triton, Greek, phonetically equivalent to Vedic Trita, 313.

Twilight, duration of, at the Pole, 58; of the gods in the Norse mythology, 72.

Two, creating the five, 175.

UCHATHYA, the father of Dirghatamas in the Ṛig-Veda, 156.

Uchchâ-budhna, with the bottom up, applied to the nether world, 285.

Ukko, the descending stream of, in the Finnish Mythology, 256.

Ukthya, a Soma-sacrifice, 190.

Upsala, an ancient Aryan site, 381.

Ursâ Major, the constellation of the Great Bear, high altitude of, in Ṛig-Veda, 61; above the path of the sun, 134.

Urvashî, 224.

Uṣhas, the Vedic goddesses of morn, the most beautiful of Vedic deities, 75; its physical character unobscured, id; lasted long enough to allow the recitation of the whole Ṛig-Veda,

77; or to admit of a five-fold or three-fold division, 78; said to shine perpetually in old times, 78; difference between it and vi-uṣhṭi, id.; three Vedic texts proving that it lasted continuously for several days, 79, 366; addressed in plural as well as singular 88; not honorifically as supposed by Yâska, 88; nor owing to the number of presiding deities, 89; nor by reference to the consecutive daily dawns, go; the plural represents one long continuous dawn divided into many day-long portions, go; thirty dawns or dawn-sisters in the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, 90, 103-112; in the Ṛig-Veda, 94; a continuous team of thirty dawns in the Taittirîya Brâhmaṇa, 97-98; all moving round and round in the same plane, 95; their circular motion in the Ṛig-Veda, 97; the characteristics of Vedic dawns summed up, 99-100; variation in the duration of, illustrated by the story of Indra’s shattering its car, 101; all prove its Polar character, 102.

Utathya, the father of Dirghatamas in the Mahâbhârata, 156.

Utsarginam avajsam, a sacrificial session lasting for a lunar year, 193.

Uttara, the north, why so called, 134.

Uttarâyana, originally equinoctial, misunderstood by Bhâskara, 52-53.

Uttarakuras, 362.

VACH, the speech, eternity of, 415.

Vadhrimati, a protégé of the Ashvins, 282, 289.

Vâjapeya, a Some-sacrifice, 190.

Vala, Indra’s enemy, vanquished with the assistance of Navagvas at the end of the year, 149, 150, 151, 155, 199, 231, 259, 260; his cave split by the word of Bṛihaspati, 186.

Vâlmîki, drew probably from the same mythological source as Homer, 324.

Vâmana, the fifth incarnation of Viṣhṇu, 304.

Vandana, rescued by the Ashvins, 150, 226, 280, 282.

Vunguhi, a river in the Airyana Vaêjo but not mentioned in the Vendidad, 337.

Vanna-issa, the old father in the Finnish Mythology, 376

Vara, of Yima, the annual sunrise and year-long day in, 67, 350

Vartikâ, rescued by the Ashvins, Yâska’s view about, 221.

Varuṇa, ruler of the waters, 163, 238; his tree and region turned upside down, 286; representative of long Arctic darkness, and hence described as embracing the nights, 326.

Vedas, still imperfectly understood, 5, 39; new key to their interpretation supplied by the latest geological researches, 6; strata of, not necessarily in chronological order, 42; how preserved, 398, 399; eternity of, discussed, 414, 430; Manu’s and Vyâsa’s view on the eternity of, 416; Jaimini’s view, 417; grammarians’, Badârâyaṇa’s, Naiyyâyikas’ view, 418, Sâṅkhyas’view, 419; Patañjail’s view, 420; theological and historical views compared, 424, 425; the view of Vedic Ṛiṣhis themselves, 426, 429; lost in the deluge and repromulgated afterwards by the Ṛiṣhis, 416; practically eternal in substance though not in form, 420.

Veh, See Vanguhi.

Verethraghna, the Avestic form of Vṛitrahan, 205 ten incarnations 325.

Vernal, theory, 227; its inadequacy to explain the legends of the Ashvins, 283, 287.

Vifra Navâza, compared with the Navagvas, 374.

Vigfusson, Dr. on the ancient Norse year commencing in October, 371.

Vimada, a protégé of the Ashivins, 280.

Vipras, or sacrificers seven and ten, 318.

Vîras, or warriors, seven, nine and ten, 320 321.

Virûpas, an epithet of the Aṅgirases, 155.

Virûpe, means unlike in length and not unlike in hue, 122.

Viṣhnâpû, a protégé of the Ashvins, 280.

Viṣhṇu, as a Vedic deity, nature of his three strides, 303, 304; helped Indra in the Vṛitra-fight, 305, his third step identical with the nether world, 306 his sleep for four months on his serpent-bed, id, why called Shipivishta, 306, 309; meaning of Shipivishta 307, 308; indicates the long disappearance of the sun below the horizon in the Arctic region 309.

Viṣhpalâ, Ashvins’ protégé, 226, 281.

Viṣhuvan, the central day in the Soma-sacrifice, 192.

Vishvaka, relieved by the Ashvins, 280.

Vivasvat, the ten of, 176; the father of Manu, 361.

Vouru-Kasha, the gathering place of waters in the Avesta, 206, 246; the scene of Tishtrya’s fight with Apaosha, 206.

Vṛiṣhâkapâyî, 223.

Vṛiṣhâkapi, the probable Vedic ancestor of Hanûmân, 324.

Vṛitra, the traditional enemy of Indra, engulfed in long darkness, 115; Yâska’s view about the nature of, 221; believed to imprison the waters in the rain-cloud, 224; four-fold character or effect of his fight with Indra, 227, 228; his dark and hidden watery abode 229; simultaneous release of light and water by the killing of Vṛitra, 231- 237; utterly inexplicable on the Storm theory, 232, 237; explained by the theory of the cosmic circulation of aerial waters, 723, 240, 255; and by the Arctic theory, 258; the date of Indra’s fight with, 259, 267; See Apaḥ Indra, Shambara, Seven rivers, Vala.

Vṛitṛahan, the killer of Vṛitra, an ancient Arctic deity, 274, 275.

Vṛitra-tûrya, fight with Vṛitra, 227.

Vyâsa, his view about the eternity of the Vedas, 416, 420.

WALLACE, supports Lyell’s theory of the Glacial period, 24.

Wallis, Mr., his erroneous view that the nether world was unknown to the Vedic bards, 239, 242.

Warren, Dr., on the original home of the human race at the North Pole, 6;

on the existence of a Polar continent in primitive times, 37; his description of the Polar dawn with its revolving splendors 46, 47; on Greek traditions

of six-monthly day, 72; on the cosmic circulation of aerial waters, 255; on the conception of anti-podal underworld as an inverted tub, 285; on the cradle of the human race, 383-384.

Waters, captivated by Vṛitra, 227, 228; divided into terrestrial and celestial, 237, 238; nature of the celestial, id.; movement of the celestial or aerial in the Avesta, 247, 248; moving upwards, 249; cessation of the movements of, in winter, 253, cosmic circulation of, in other mythologies, 255, 256; See Apaḥ.

Weber, Prof., on the Iliad and the Râmâyana, 325.

West, Dr., on the meaning of Dâîtîk in the Vendidad, 337.

Wheel, of the sun, stolen by Indra, 297; See sun.

Wieland, the German smith, 188.

Winter, at perihelion and aphelion difference between, 27; succession of these after 21,000 years, 27; short and warm in the interglacial, and long and cold in the glacial times, 28, 29; longer or shorter than summer by 33 days, 29; death in, regarded as inauspicious, 70; cessation of the flow of waters in, 252; of ten months id., the Airyana Vaêjo, 341; one hundred winters, 366.

— Calends, the night of, in Celtic mythology, 368.

— Nights, the Norse feast of, 371.

Woden, the disappearance of the gold ring of, 379.

Word, the final source of every thing, 418; compared to Logos, 418-426.

YASKA, his method of interpreting difficult Vedic passages, 6, 63, 75, 79, 319, 387; on the use of dawns in the plural number, 88, 90, 93, on the seven rays of the sun, 140; on the etymology of Navagvas, 152; silent on Ati-râtra, 196; on the schools of Vedic interpretation, 219; on Vṛitra, 221; on the cup with the mouth downwards 282, on the Pada text, 303; on Viṣhṇu’s three steps, 303; on shipivishta, 307; on the seven rays of the sun, 316.

Yama, the agents of, 148.

Year, Polar, distribution of light and darkness during, 45; circumpolar described, 51; ancient Vedic of 360 days and 6 seasons, 58-59; old Egyptian, traces of, how preserved, 137; sacrificial, how preserved and revived, 175, ancient Roman, of ten months, 183, compared to annual sacrificial sattra of ten months 183; ancient Celtic, closed with the last day of October, 369; old Norse, 371; divine, or of the gods, the theory of 393; how originated, 395; Arctic, before Aryan separation in inter-glacial times, 404-405.

Year-god, five-footed and resting on watery vapors, 169.

Yima, the Avestic Yama, his Vara or enclosure, 350; annual sun, rise therein 350; proves its Polar position, 351; prophecy of its destruction, 353.

Yuga, meaning of, in the Ṛig-Veda 158; of two kinds, divine and human, 159; both denote a period of time and not a generation of men 159, 161, denote a period of the year, 162, singly it denoted one month, 163, Raṅgâchârya’s view, thereon 164.

— Pûrvyam yugam, the former age, meaning time before the present Kalpa, 145.

— Purâṇic, cycle of four equal to 10,000 years, duration and character of, 392-399; Raṇgâchârya’s and Aiyer’s view on the duration of, 393; See, Ages, Dashameyuge, Kali, Tṛita, &c.

ZEUS, born bred and buried according to Cretan tradition, 406, reduced to a sinewless mass by Typho, 407.

Zimmer, Prof., his view that the nether regions were known to the Vedic bards supported, 239-240.