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

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or the paradise of the Iranians. The Vara, or the enclosure, advised
by Ahura Mazda, is accordingly prepared, and Yima asked Ahura
Mazda, “O Maker of the material world, thou Holy One! What lights
are there to give light in the Vara which Yima made?” Ahura Mazda
answered, “There are uncreated lights and created lights. There the
stars, the moon and the sun are only once (a year) seen to rise and
set, and a year seems only as a day.” I have taken Darmesteter’s
rendering but Spiegel’s is substantially the same. This passage is
important from various standpoints. First of all it tells us, that the
Airyana Vaêjo, or the original home of the Iranians, was a place
which was rendered uninhabitable by glaciation; and secondly that in
this original home the sun rose and set only once in the year, and that
the year was like a day to the inhabitants of the place. The bearing of
the passage in regard to glaciation will be discussed latter on. For the
present, it is enough to point out how completely it corroborates and
elucidates the statement in the Taittirîya Brâhmana stated and
discussed above. The yearly rising and setting of the sun is possible
only at the North Pole and the mention of this characteristic leaves no
room for doubting that the Vara and the Airyana Vaêjo were both
located in the Arctic or Circum-Polar regions, and that the passage in
the Taittirîya Brâhmana also refers to the Polar year. The fact that the
statement is found both in the Iranian and the Indian literature further
negatives the probability of its being a fabrication from mathematical
calculation. Nor can we suppose that both the branches of the Aryan
race became acquainted with this fact simply by an effort of
unassisted imagination, or that it was a mere metaphor. The only
remaining alternative is to hold, as Sir Charles Lyell* has remarked,
that the tradition was “founded on the observation of Nature.”
It is true, that the statement, or anything similar to it, is not
found in the يig-Veda; but it will be shown later on that there are
many other passages in the يig-Veda which go to
* See Elements of Geology, 11th Ed., Vol. I, p. 8.