THE ARCTIC HOME IN THE VEDAS
Being Also a New Key to the Interpretation of Many Vedic Texts and Legends
By
Lokamanya Bâl Gangâdhar Tilak
The proprietor of the
Kesari
and the
Mahratta
newspapers,The author of the
Orion
or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas,The Gita Rahasya
(
a Book on Hindu Philosophy
) etc., etc.PublishersMessrs. TILAK BROSGaikwar WadaPoona City
1903
CONTENTS
Chapter Page
i
The present volume is a sequel to my
Orion or Researches intothe Antiquity of the Vedas
, published in 1893. The estimate of Vedicantiquity then generally current amongst Vedic scholars was basedon the assignment of arbitrary period of time to the different stratainto which the Vedic literature is divided; and it was believed that theoldest of these strata could not, at the best, be older than 2400 B.C.In my
Orion
, however, I tried to show that all such estimates, besidesbeing too modest, were vague and uncertain, and that theastronomical statements found in the Vedic literature supplied us withfar more reliable data for correctly ascertaining the ages of thedifferent periods of Vedic literature. These astronomical statements, itwas further shown, unmistakably pointed out that the Vernal equinoxwas in the constellation of M
ṛ
iga or Orion (about 4500 B.C.) duringthe period of the Vedic hymns, and that it had receded to theconstellation of the K
ṛ
ittikâs, or the Pleiades (about 2500 B.C.) in thedays of the Brâhma
n
as. Naturally enough these results were, at first,received by scholars in a skeptical spirit. But my position wasstrengthened when it was found that Dr. Jacobi, of Bonn, hadindependently arrived at the same conclusion, and, soon after,scholars like Prof. Bloomfield, M. Barth, the late Dr. Bulher andothers, more or less freely, acknowledged the force of my arguments.Dr. Thibaut, the late Dr. Whitney and a few others were, however, of opinion that the evidence adduced by me was not conclusive. But thesubsequent discovery, by my friend the late Mr. S. B. Dixit, of apassage in the Shatapatha Brâhma
n
a, plainly stating that the K
ṛ
ittikâsnever swerved, in those days, from the
due east
i.e., the Vernalequinox, has served to dispel all lingering doubts regarding the age of the Brâhma
n
as; while another Indian astronomer, Mr. V. B. Ketkar, ina recent number of the Journal
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