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

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CHAPTER IV
THE NIGHT OF THE GODS
Vedic sacrifices, regulated by the luni-solar calendar — A year of six
seasons and twelve months, with an intercalary month in the Taittirîya
Samhitâ — The same in the Rig-Veda — Present results of the Vedic
mythology — All presuppose a home in the temperate or the tropical zone
— But further research still necessary — The special character of the Rig-
Veda explained — Polar tests found in the Rig-Veda — Indra supporting the
heavens with a pole, and moving them like a wheel — A day and a night of
six months, in the form of the half yearly day and night of the Gods —
Found in the Sûrya Siddhânta and older astronomical Samhitâs —
Bhâskarâchârya’s error explained — Gods’ day and night mentioned by
Manu and referred to by Yâska — The description of Meru or the North Pole
in the Mahâbhârata — In the Taittirîya Aranyaka — The passage in the
Taittirîya Brâhmana about the year long day of the Gods — Improbability of
explaining it except as founded on the observation of nature — Parallel
passage in the Vendidad — Its Polar character clearly established by the
context — The Vara of Yima in the Airyana Vaêjo — The sun rising and
setting there only once a year — The Devayâna and the Pitriyâna in the Rig-
Veda — Probably represent the oldest division of the year, like the day and
the night of the Gods — The path of Mazda in the Parsi scriptures — Death
during Pitriyâna regarded inauspicious — Bâdarâyana’s view — Probable
explanation suggested — Death during winter or Pitriyâna in the Parsi
scriptures — Probably indicates a period of total darkness — Similar Greek
traditions — Norse Twilight of the Gods — The idea of half-yearly day and
night of the Gods thus proved to be not only Indo-Iranian, but Indo-
Germanic — A sure indication of an original Polar home.
At the threshold of the Vedic literature, we meet with an
elaborately organized sacrificial system so well regulated by the lunisolar
calendar as to show that the Vedic bards had, by that time,
attained considerable proficiency in practical astronomy. There were
daily, fortnightly, monthly, quarterly, half-yearly and yearly sacrifices,
which, as I have elsewhere shown, also served as chronometers in
those days.*
* See The Orion or the Antiquity of the Vedas, Chap. II.