Sunday, November 15, 2009

Arctic Home in the Vedas


Arctic Home in the Vedas
Author: Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Publisher: Vijay Goel, Delhi
Pages: 188
Tilak, the renowned freedom fighter of India and a learned intellectual to adorn the pantheon of enlightened leaders of the 20th century puts forward a new theory on the origin and birth place of the Aryan race. From the references in the Vedas and Zend Avesta, the sacred book of the Parsis, Tilak concludes that the original home of the Aryans was well to the north of Arctic circle, which had a pleasant and habitable climate in the inter-glacial period immediately after the last ice age around 8000 BC. They migrated from the place and travelled to diverse places like Western Europe, Persia and India. References from Vedas and Brahmanas are quoted extensively throughout the book giving the arguments credence and authority. Corroborative evidence from Avesta makes the arguments powerful and lends weight to stand upright even in the face of the fiercest criticisms.
Tilak’s language is pristine and unequivocal. Whether the theory is right or wrong, the style of presentation and the author’s knowledge of the topics he is handling is impeccable. The long bibliography testifies to the determination of the ‘hard liner’ in Indian politics in early 20th century. The time period of Aryans’ migration is categorized thus:
10,000 or 8,000 BC – The destruction of the original Arctic home by the last Ice age and the commencement of the post-Glacial period.
8,000 – 5,000 BC – The age of migration from the original home. The vernal equinox was then in the constellation of Punarvasu.
5,000 – 3,000 BC – The Orion period, when the vernal equinox was in Orion. Many Vedic hymns can be traced to the early part of this period. It was at this time that first attempts to reform the calendar and the sacrificial system appear to have been systematically made.
3,000 – 1,400 BC – The Krittika period, when the Vernal equinox was in Pleiades. The traditions about the original Arctic home had grown dim by this time and very often misunderstood, making the Vedic hymns more and more unintelligible.
1,400 – 500 BC – The Pre-Buddhistic period, when the Sutras and the philosophical systems made their appearance.
When the arguments are however examined with the cold light of reason and hindsight, they fall to the ground. The author’s reasoning is mainly based on the passages in Rig Veda which refer to long nights and dawns. Instead of treating them as poetic fantasies, Tilak takes them to mean verbatim and concludes that the Arctic days and nights are longer, sometimes up to months, these are reproductions of the dim memory of the original home of the Aryans. In some passages, the justifications are really stretched to the verge of breaking. An example goes like this, “Aditi, Mitra and also Varuna forgive if we have committed any sin against you! May I obtain the wide fearless light, O Indra! May not the long darkness come over us! (Rig Veda II, 27,14). The expression in the original for ‘long darkness’ is dirghah tamisrah and means an ‘uninterrupted succession of dark nights rather than simply ‘long darkness’.
Tilak’s unabashed eulogy of Brahmins and supremacy of Aryans is discomfiting for those readers who expect a more cosmopolitan view from one of the stalwarts of Indian nationalism. Regarding Brahmins, he says, “The Asiatic Aryans (as against European Aryans) were able to preserve a good deal more of the original religion and culture, but it seems to be mainly due to their having incorporated the old traditions into their religious hymns or songs; and made it the exclusive business of a few to preserve and hand down with religious scrupulosity these prayers and songs to future generations by means of memory specially trained and cultivated for the purpose.” and also, “the vitality and superiority of the Aryans races, as disclosed by their conquest, by extermination or assimilation of the non-Aryan races, with whom they came in contact in their migrations in search of new lands from the North pole to the Equators, if not to the farther south, is intelligible only on the assumption of a high degree of civilisation in their original Arctic home”
Overall rating: 2 Star

1 comment:

  1. It is amazing how accurately Tilak got the time period right as dna analysis confirms paternal haplogroup unite 9500yrs ybp. But my own analysis takes it many more years in past. Indians have majority of R1a and negligible R1b. This means Indians have separated from europeans around 14500 ybp when R1b branched out from parent R1a. This also means R1a arose in India from Arab/Iranian dna much earlier.

    One branch of R1a moved out of India and since R1a is only only 2500 year or so older than R1b, this means R1b arose soon after and then captured western europe and returned to Ukraine azerbaijan as yamnaya culture with R1b as 50% of population. There was another wave of later R1a which moved in to eastern europe and scandinavia much later as Huns and goths.

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