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

343
by the advent of the Glacial period which made winters long and
severe and summers short and cold. The description of the climatic
changes introduced by Angra Mainyu into the Airyana Vaêjo is,
therefore, just what a modern geologist would ascribe to the Glacial
epoch; and when the description is so remarkably and unexpectedly
corroborated by the latest scientific researches, I fail to see on what
ground we can lightly set it aside as mythical or imaginary.. If some
Zend scholars have done so in the past, it was because geological
knowledge was not then sufficiently advanced to establish the
probability of the description contained in the Avesta. But with new
materials before us which go to confirm the Avestic description of the
Airyana Vaêjo in every detail, we shall be acting unwisely if we
decline to revise the conclusions of Zend scholars arrived at some
years ago on insufficient materials. When we look at the question
from this point of view, we have to place the site of the Airyana Vaêjo
in the Arctic regions, where alone we can have a winter of ten months
at the present day. We can escape from such a conclusion only by
denying the possibility that the passage in question contains any
traditional account of the ancient home of the Iranians; and this
course seems to have been adopted by some Zend scholars of the
day. But with the Vedic evidence, set forth and discussed in the
previous chapters, before us, we need not have any of those
apprehensions which have hitherto led many Zend scholars to err on
the side of caution and moderation. We have seen that there are
strong grounds for holding that the ancient Indo-European year was a
year of ten months followed by a long night of two months, in other
words, it was a year of ten summer months and two winter months,
that is, exactly of the same kind as the one which prevailed in the
Airyana Vaêjo before the happy land was invaded by the evil spirit.
The word for summer in Zend is hama, the same as Sanskrit samâ,
which means “a year” in the يig-Veda. The period of ten summer
months mentioned in the Avesta would, therefore, mean a year of ten
months’ sunshine, or of ten mânushâ yugâ, followed by a long wintry
night of