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

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The old Persian and Greek names in the above table are taken
from the inscriptions of the Achæmenian kings and the works of
Greek writers after the overthrow of the Achæmenian dynasty by
Alexander the Great. They show that at least 10 out of 16 lands can
be still identified with certainty; and if so, we can safely say that the
account in the first Fargard is real and not mythical. But with regard to
the land mentioned first in the list, there has been a difference of
opinion amongst Zend scholars. The Airyana Vaêjo is the first created
happy land, and the name signifies that it was the birth-land (Vaêjo =
seed, sans. bîja) of the Aryans (Iranians), or the Paradise of the
Iranian race. Was this a mythical region or a real country representing
the original home of the Aryans, and if it was a real country where
was it situated? This is the first question which we have to answer
from the evidence contained in the first two Fargards of the Vendidad;
and secondly, we have to decide whether the sixteen lands
mentioned above were the successive countries occupied by the
ancestors of the Iranian race in their migrations from the original
home in the north. The Fargard says nothing about migration. It
simply mentions that so many lands were created by Ahura Mazda
and that in opposition thereto Angra Mainyu, the evil Spirit of the
Avesta, created so many different evils and plagues which rendered
the lands unfit for human residence. It is inferred from this that the
Fargard does not contain an account of successive migrations, but
merely gives us a description of the countries known to the ancestors
of the Iranians at the time when the Fargards were composed. In
other words, the chapter is geographical and not historical, containing
nothing but a specification of the countries known to the Iranians at a
particular time; and it is argued that it would be converting geography
into history to take the different countries to represent the successive
stages of migrations from the primeval home, when not a word about
migration is found in the original text. Professor Darmesteter further
observes that as the enumeration of the sixteen lands begins with
Airyana Vaêjo by the river Vanguhi Dâitya and