VEDAS & HUMAN DNA IV
THE AGE OF ARYAN VEDIC ORAL TRADITIONS & WRITING OF VEDAS
8000 BC
The polar star 7,000 years ago was different from what it is at present but the terrestrial pole has always remained the same. This motion of the earths axis, producing the precession of the equinoxes, is important from an antiquarian point of view, inasmuch as it causes a change in the times when different seasons of the year begin; and it was mainly by utilizing this chronometer that is shown in Lokamanya Bâl Gangâdhar Tilaks Orion or Researches in the Antiquity of the Vedas that the vernal equinox was in Orion when some of the Rig-Vedic traditions were formed, and that the Vedic literature contained enough clear evidence of the successive changes of the position of the vernal equinox up to the present time.
According to geologists 20,000 or even 80,000 years have passed since the close of the last Glacial epoch; and as the oldest date assigned to the Vedic hymns does not go beyond 4500 B.C., it may be contended that the traditions of the Ice Age, or of the inter-Glacial home, cannot be supposed to have been accurately preserved by oral transmission for thousands of years that elapsed between the commencement of the post-Glacial era and the oldest date of the Vedic hymns.
It is, therefore, necessary to examine the point a little more closely in this place. In Lokamanya Bâl Gangâdhar Tilaks Orion or Researches into the antiquity of the Vedas, he has shown that while the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ and the Brâhmaṇas begin the Nakṣhatras with the Kṛittikâs or the Pleiades, showing that the vernal equinox then coincided with the aforesaid asterism (2500 B.C.), the Vedic literature contains traces of Mṛiga or Orion being once the first of the Nakṣhatras and the hymns of the Ṛig-Veda, or at least many of them, which are undoubtedly older than the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, contain reference to this period, that is, about 4500 B.C. approximately.
It is also pointed out that there are faint traces of the same equinox being once in the constellation of Punarvasû, presided over by Aditi, which was possible in about 6,000 B.C. Lokamanya Bâl Gangâdhar Tilak has in his later researches tried to push back this limit by searching for the older zodiacal positions of the vernal equinox in the Vedic literature, but he has not found any evidence of the same. His attention was, however, directed more and more to passages containing traces of an Arctic calendar and an Arctic home, and he has been gradually led to infer there from that at about 5000 or 6000 B.C., the Vedic Aryas had settled on the plains of Central Asia, and that at the time the traditions about the existence of the Arctic home and its destruction by snow and ice, as well as about the Arctic origin of the Vedic deities, were definitely known to the bards of these races.
In short, researches in Vedic chronology and calendar do not warrant us in placing the advent of the last Glacial epoch, which destroyed the ancient Aryan home, at a time several thousands of years previous to the Orion period; and from what has been stated in the first two chapters of the book, it will be seen that this estimate well agrees with the conclusions of American geologists, who, from an examination of the erosion of valleys and similar other well-ascertained facts, assign to the close of the last Glacial epoch a date not older than about 8000 B.C. We might even go further and say that ancient Vedic chronology and calendar furnish an independent corroboration of the moderate view of the American geologists; and when two independent lines of research unexpectedly lead us to the same result, we may very well reject, at least in the present state of our knowledge, the extravagant speculations of Croll and his followers, and, for all practical purposes, adopt the view that the last Glacial epoch closed and the post-Glacial period commenced at about 8000-(10000) B.C.
From this to the Orion period is an interval of about 3000 years, and it is not at all improbable that the traditions of the ancient home should have been remembered and incorporated into hymns whose origin can be clearly traced to that period.
In short, the Vedic traditions, far from being contradictory to the scientific evidence, only serve to check the extravagant estimates regarding the age of the last Glacial epoch; and if the sober view of American geologists be adopted, both geology and the traditions recorded in the ancient books of the Aryan race will be found alike to point out to a period not much older than 8000-(10000) B.C. for the commencement of the post-Glacial era and the compulsory migration of the Aryan races from their Arctic home.
According to geologists 20,000 or even 80,000 years have passed since the close of the last Glacial epoch; and as the oldest date assigned to the Vedic hymns does not go beyond 4500 B.C., it may be contended that the traditions of the Ice Age, or of the inter-Glacial home, cannot be supposed to have been accurately preserved by oral transmission for thousands of years that elapsed between the commencement of the post-Glacial era and the oldest date of the Vedic hymns.
It is, therefore, necessary to examine the point a little more closely in this place. In Lokamanya Bâl Gangâdhar Tilaks Orion or Researches into the antiquity of the Vedas, he has shown that while the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ and the Brâhmaṇas begin the Nakṣhatras with the Kṛittikâs or the Pleiades, showing that the vernal equinox then coincided with the aforesaid asterism (2500 B.C.), the Vedic literature contains traces of Mṛiga or Orion being once the first of the Nakṣhatras and the hymns of the Ṛig-Veda, or at least many of them, which are undoubtedly older than the Taittirîya Saṁhitâ, contain reference to this period, that is, about 4500 B.C. approximately.
It is also pointed out that there are faint traces of the same equinox being once in the constellation of Punarvasû, presided over by Aditi, which was possible in about 6,000 B.C. Lokamanya Bâl Gangâdhar Tilak has in his later researches tried to push back this limit by searching for the older zodiacal positions of the vernal equinox in the Vedic literature, but he has not found any evidence of the same. His attention was, however, directed more and more to passages containing traces of an Arctic calendar and an Arctic home, and he has been gradually led to infer there from that at about 5000 or 6000 B.C., the Vedic Aryas had settled on the plains of Central Asia, and that at the time the traditions about the existence of the Arctic home and its destruction by snow and ice, as well as about the Arctic origin of the Vedic deities, were definitely known to the bards of these races.
In short, researches in Vedic chronology and calendar do not warrant us in placing the advent of the last Glacial epoch, which destroyed the ancient Aryan home, at a time several thousands of years previous to the Orion period; and from what has been stated in the first two chapters of the book, it will be seen that this estimate well agrees with the conclusions of American geologists, who, from an examination of the erosion of valleys and similar other well-ascertained facts, assign to the close of the last Glacial epoch a date not older than about 8000 B.C. We might even go further and say that ancient Vedic chronology and calendar furnish an independent corroboration of the moderate view of the American geologists; and when two independent lines of research unexpectedly lead us to the same result, we may very well reject, at least in the present state of our knowledge, the extravagant speculations of Croll and his followers, and, for all practical purposes, adopt the view that the last Glacial epoch closed and the post-Glacial period commenced at about 8000-(10000) B.C.
From this to the Orion period is an interval of about 3000 years, and it is not at all improbable that the traditions of the ancient home should have been remembered and incorporated into hymns whose origin can be clearly traced to that period.
In short, the Vedic traditions, far from being contradictory to the scientific evidence, only serve to check the extravagant estimates regarding the age of the last Glacial epoch; and if the sober view of American geologists be adopted, both geology and the traditions recorded in the ancient books of the Aryan race will be found alike to point out to a period not much older than 8000-(10000) B.C. for the commencement of the post-Glacial era and the compulsory migration of the Aryan races from their Arctic home.
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
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