Bal GangadharTilak on the Origin of the Persians

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On the following pages, Bal Gangadhar Tilak refers to a Parsi/Persian

scripture in order to make deductions about the origin of that Indo-European

group.

 

The idea is that the conversation took place before the polar ice began to

build up this is not impossible, the Vedas have such antiquity, so why

notthe Persian scripture? One is probably derived from the other, as the

scripture of an off-shoot culture, or both derived from the same source.

According to a Vedic time frame, this conversation took place before the

dawn of the Kali Yuga. Again, Indo European settlement of the Arctic areas

is indicated. This is right near the opening suggested by evidence from

Polar exploration.

 

>From pages 59 - 60:

 

But we cannot suppose that during the times of the Brithmapas the

astronomical knowledge was so far advanced as to make it possible to

fabricate is fact by mathematical. calculation, even supposing that the

Vedic poets were capable of making such a fabrication. Even in the days of

Herodotus the statement that ` there existed a people who slept for six

months' was regarded 'incredible'( IV, 24), and we must, therefore, give up

the idea, that several centuries before Herodotus, a statement regarding the

day or the night of the Gods could have been fabricated in the way stated

above. But all doubts on the point are set at rest by the occurrence of an

almost identical state ment in the sacred books of the Parsis. In the

Vendidad, Fargard II, pare 40, ( or according to Spiegel, pare 133 ), we

find the sentence, Tae cha ayara mainyaente yet yare, meaning "They regard,

as a day, what is a year. " This is but a paraphrase of the statement, in

the Taittirfya Briihmalta and the context in the Parsi scriptures removes

all possible doubts regarding the Polar character of the statement. The

latter part of the second Fargard, where this this passage occurs, contains

a discourse between Ahura Mazda and Yima. Ahura Mazda warns Yima, the first

king of men, of approach of a dire winter, which is to destroy every

living creature by covering the land with a thick sheet of ice, and advises

Yima to build a Vara, or an enclosure, to preserve the seeds of every kind

of animal and plants. The meeting is said to have taken place in the

Airyana Vaejo, 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. sun are

only once ( a year ) seen to rise and set, and a year seems as a day."I

have taken Darmesteter's rendering but Spiegel's is essentially the same.

This paassage is important from various standpoints. First of all it tells

us, that the Airyana Vaejo, or the orgiaial home of the Uaniaas, was a place

which was rendered uninhabitable by glaciation; sad 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 later on. For the present, it is

enough to point out how completely it corroborates and ellucidatea the

statement in the Taittir3ya BrAhmapa 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 first the Vara

and the Airyana Vaejo were both located in the Acetic or Circum-Polar

regions, and that the passage in the Taittiiya Brahmapa 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 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 Rig-Veda; but it will be shown later on that there are many other

passages in the Rig-Veda which go to corroborate this statement in a

remarkable way by referring to other Polar characteristics. I may, however,

mention here the fact that the oldest Vedic year appears to have been

divided only into two portions, the Devaytina and the Pitriytna, which

originally cortex: ponded with the Uttarilyapa and the Dakshipi<yana, or the

day and the night of the Gods. The word Devayana occurs several times is the

Rig-Veda Samhita, and denotes ` the path of the Gods. ' Thus in the Rig. I,

72, 7, Agni is said to be cognizant of the Devayana road, and in Rig. I,

153, 6, and 184, 6, the poet says, " We have, O Ashvins ! reached the and of

darkness: now come to us by the Devayana road.

 

 

>From page 63:

 

The Parsi scriptures are still more explicit. In the Vendidad, Fargards V,

10, and VIII, 4, a question is raised how the worshipper s Mazda should act,

when a death takes place in a house when summer has passed and the winter

has come; and Ahura Mazda wers, " In such cases a kata ( ditch ) should be

made in every house and there the lifeless body should be allowed to lie for

two two nights, or for three nights, or for a month long, until the birds

begin to fly, the plants to grow, the floods to flow, and the wind to up the

water from off the earth. " Considering the fact that the body of a

worshipper of Mazda is required to be exposed to the before it is consigned

to birds, the only reason for keeping the wbody in the house for one month

seems to be that it was a the of darkness. The description of birds

beginning to fly, and foods to flow, etc., reminds one of the description of

the dawn the Rig-Veda, and it is quite probable that the expressions here

quote the same phenomenon as in the Rig-Veda. In fact they indicate a winter

of total darkness during which the corpse is directed be kept in the house,

to be exposed to the sun on the first breakof the dawn after the long

night.'