Artic Home of the Aryans by Lokamanya Bal ... - Mandhata Global

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to be flat and that as the Hades was a region of complete darkness,
the sun could not be said to go there even after his setting. Dr.
Warren has, however, shown that the assumption is entirely
groundless, and that Homer’s earth was really a sphere and that the
underworld was full of aerial waters. We have seen above, how some
Vedic scholars have raised similar difficulties in the interpretation of
the Vṛitra myth by supposing that the lower celestial hemisphere was
unknown to the Vedic bards. This is probably a reflection of the
Homeric controversy, but as pointed out by Dr. Warren,* these
baseless assumptions are clue mainly to a prejudice with which many
scholars approach the question of the interpretation of ancient myths.
It is assumed that the early man could not possibly have known
anything about the world, beyond what the rudest savages know at
present; and plain and explicit statements are sometimes put aside,
distorted, or ignored by scholars, who, had they not been blinded by
prejudice, would certainly have interpreted them in a different way. It
is impossible to do justice to the subject in this place, and I would
refer to reader for further details to Dr. Warren’s instructive work on
the subject. Dr. Warren also states that Euripides, like Homer, held
the view that there was one fountain of all the world’s water, and that
the same conception is expressed by Hesiod in his Theogony, where
all rivers as sons, and all fountains and brooks as daughters, are
traced back to Okeanos. Then we have the constant descending
movement of all waters until they reach the world-surrounding Oceanriver
at the equator, beyond which is the underworld, similar to the
movements of aerial waters described in the Avesta. Aristotle in his
Meteors, is said also to have mentioned “a river in the air constantly
flowing betwixt the heaven and the earth and made by the ascending
and the descending vapors.Ӡ It is again pointed by Grill that the
ancient Germans had a similar world-river, and the descending
Ukko’s stream and the ascending Anima’s stream in the
* Paradise Found, p. 333ƒ.
† Paradise Found, p. 51, and 256, notes.