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Author | Bal Gangadhar Tilak |
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Language | English |
Subject | History |
Publication date | 1903 |
Publication place | India |
Media type | Print (hardback) |
Pages | 340 |
ISBN | 9781907166341 |
The Arctic Home in the Vedas by Indian nationalist, teacher and independence activist Bal Gangadhar Tilak is a 1903 book on the origin of the Indo-European peoples, which he in accordance with academic consensus in his time, refers to as Aryans for the totality of his book. [1] Based on his analysis of Vedic hymns, Avestic passages, Vedic chronology and Vedic calendars, Tilak argued that the North Pole was the original home of Aryans during the pre-glacial period, which they left due to climate changes around 8000 B.C., migrating to the Northern parts of Europe and Asia.
The book was written at the end of 1898, but was first published in March 1903 in Pune. Tilak cited a book by first Boston University president William F. Warren, Paradise Found or the Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole, as having anticipated his ideas.[ citation needed ]
According to Tilak, writing at the end of the 19th century, the Neolithic Aryan race in Europe cannot be regarded as autochthonous, nor did the European Aryans descend from the Paleolithic man. Hence, the question of the original Aryan home is regarded as unsettled by Tilak.
According to Tilak, the close of the Pliocene and the whole of the Pleistocene period were marked by violent changes of climate bringing on what is called the Glacial and Inter-Glacial epochs:
The Arctic was inhabited by the Aryans. The ending of the Glacial age changed the climate there, and set the Aryan people on a migration to new habitats:
Characteristics of an Arctic home, characterised by a climate different from today's, are clearly recorded in several Vedic hymns and Avestic passages. There are descriptions of the prevailing conditions and of the day-to-day experience, but also recordings of stories told by the earlier generation, sometimes presented as myths. Tilak gives the following chronology of the post-glacial period:
M. S. Golwalkar, in his 1939 publication We or Our Nationhood Defined , famously stated that "Undoubtedly [...] we – Hindus – have been in undisputed and undisturbed possession of this land for over eight or even ten thousand years before the land was invaded by any foreign race." [2] Golwalkar was inspired by Tilak's The Arctic Home in the Vedas. [3] [note 1] Gowalkar took over the idea of 10,000 years, arguing that the North Pole at that time was located in India. [3] [note 2]
Tilak's ideas influenced Soviet Indologist Natalia R. Guseva [4] and Soviet ethnographer S.V Zharnikova, [5] who argued for a northern Urals Arctic homeland of the Indo-Aryan and Slavic people; [6] their ideas were popularized by Russian nationalists. [7]
Robin Waterfield asserts that the book was influential on the esotericism of the Italian philosopher Julius Evola. [8]
The Aryan race is a pseudoscientific historical race concept that emerged in the late-19th century to describe people who descend from the Proto-Indo-Europeans as a racial grouping. The terminology derives from the historical usage of Aryan, used by modern Indo-Iranians as an epithet of "noble". Anthropological, historical, and archaeological evidence does not support the validity of this concept.
Ribhus is an ancient Indian word whose meaning evolved over time. In early layers of the Vedic literature, it referred to a sun deity. It evolved to being a wind deity, thereafter referred to three male artisans whose abilities and austerities make them into divinities in later Vedic texts. Their individual names were Ribhu, Vaja and Vibhvan, but they were collectively called Rhibhus or Ribhus. Their name's meaning is "clever, skillful, inventive, prudent", cognate to Latin labor and Gothic arb-aiþs "labour, toil", and perhaps to English elf.
Apam Napat is a deity in the Indo-Iranian pantheon associated with water. His names in the Vedas, Apām Napāt, and in Zoroastrianism, Apąm Napāt, mean "child of the waters" in Sanskrit and Avestan respectively. Napāt is cognate with Latin nepos and English nephew. In the Rig Veda, he is described as the creator of all things. It is considered to originate from the Proto-Indo-European Hepom Nepōts.
The historical Vedic religion, also called Vedicism or Vedism, and sometimes ancient Hinduism or Vedic Hinduism, constituted the religious ideas and practices prevalent amongst the Indo-Aryan peoples of the northwest Indian subcontinent during the Vedic period. These ideas and practices are found in the Vedic texts, and some Vedic rituals are still practiced today. The Vedic religion is one of the major traditions which shaped modern Hinduism, though present-day Hinduism is significantly different from the historical Vedic religion.
In Greek mythology, the Hyperboreans were a mythical people who lived in the far northern part of the known world. Their name appears to derive from the Greek ὑπέρ Βορέᾱ, "beyond Boreas", although some scholars prefer a derivation from ὑπερφέρω.
Vedic Sanskrit, also simply referred as the Vedic language, is an ancient language of the Indo-Aryan subgroup of the Indo-European language family. It is attested in the Vedas and related literature compiled over the period of the mid-2nd to mid-1st millennium BCE. It is orally preserved, predating the advent of writing by several centuries.
Dasa is a Sanskrit word found in ancient Indian texts such as the Rigveda, Pali canon, and theArthashastra. The term may mean "slave", "enemy" or "servant," but Dasa or Das can also have the following connotations: "servant of god", "devotee," "votary" or "one who has surrendered to God." Dasa may be a suffix of a given name to indicate a "servant" of a revered person or a particular deity.
Arkaim is a fortified archaeological site, dated to c. 2150-1650 BCE, belonging to the Sintashta culture, situated in the steppe of the Southern Urals, 8.2 km (5.10 mi) north-northwest of the village of Amursky and 2.3 km (1.43 mi) east-southeast of the village of Alexandrovsky in the Chelyabinsk Oblast of Russia, just north of the border with Kazakhstan. It was discovered in 1987 by a team of archaeologists which later came under the leadership of Gennady Zdanovich. The realization of its importance unprecedentedly forestalled the planned flooding of the area for a reservoir. The construction of Arkaim is attributed to the early Proto-Indo-Iranian-speakers of the Sintashta culture, which some scholars believe represents the proto-Indo-Iranians before their split into different groups and migration to Central Asia and from there to Persia, India and other parts of Eurasia.
The Purus were a Rigvedic tribe or a confederation of tribes that existed between c. 1700–1400 BCE. There were several factions of Purus, one being the Bharatas. The Purus and the Bharatas were the two most prominent tribes in most of the Rigveda. The chief of tribe was called Rajan The Purus rallied many other groups against King Sudas of the Bharata, but were defeated in the Battle of the Ten Kings.
Vasishtha is one of the oldest and revered Vedic rishis or sages, and one of the Saptarishis. Vasishtha is credited as the chief author of Mandala 7 of the Rigveda. Vasishtha and his family are mentioned in Rigvedic verse 10.167.4, other Rigvedic mandalas and in many Vedic texts. His ideas have been influential and he was called the first sage of the Vedanta school of Hindu philosophy by Adi Shankara.
The horse has been present in the Indian subcontinent from at least the middle of the second millennium BC, more than two millennia after its domestication in Central Asia. The earliest uncontroversial evidence of horse remains on the Indian Subcontinent date to the early Swat culture. While horse remains and related artifacts have been found in Late Harappan sites, indicating that horses may have been present at Late Harappan times, horses did not play an essential role in the Harappan civilisation, in contrast to the Vedic period. The importance of the horse for the Indo-Aryans is indicated by the Sanskrit word Ashva, "horse," which is often mentioned in the Vedas and Hindu scriptures.
The Bharatas were an early Vedic tribe that existed in the latter half of the second millennium B.C.E. The earliest mentioned location of the Bharatas was on the first Sarasvatī River in southern Afghanistan. Led by the tribal king Divodāsa, the Bharatas moved through the Hindu Kush mountains and defeated Śambara. Divodāsa's descendant, Sudās, won the Battle of the Ten Kings against a Pūru-led coalition, after which the initial compilation of hymns of the R̥gveda was carried out. After the battle, the Bharatas and other Pūru clans eventually formed the Kuru Kingdom, which was the first attested state in Indian history.
Indigenous Aryanism, also known as the Indigenous Aryans theory (IAT) and the Out of India theory (OIT), is the conviction that the Aryans are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homeland in India into their present locations. It is a "religio-nationalistic" view on Indian history, and propagated as an alternative to the established migration model, which considers the Pontic–Caspian steppe to be the area of origin of the Indo-European languages.
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age, is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas, was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the urban Indus Valley Civilisation and a second urbanisation, which began in the central Indo-Gangetic Plain c. 600 BCE. The Vedas are liturgical texts which formed the basis of the influential Brahmanical ideology, which developed in the Kuru Kingdom, a tribal union of several Indo-Aryan tribes. The Vedas contain details of life during this period that have been interpreted to be historical and constitute the primary sources for understanding the period. These documents, alongside the corresponding archaeological record, allow for the evolution of the Indo-Aryan and Vedic culture to be traced and inferred.
Arctic exploration is the physical exploration of the Arctic region of the Earth. It refers to the historical period during which mankind has explored the region north of the Arctic Circle. Historical records suggest that humankind have explored the northern extremes since 325 BC, when the ancient Greek sailor Pytheas reached a frozen sea while attempting to find a source of the metal tin. Dangerous oceans and poor weather conditions often fetter explorers attempting to reach polar regions, and journeying through these perils by sight, boat, and foot has proven difficult.
The Rigveda or Rig Veda is an ancient Indian collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns (sūktas). It is one of the four sacred canonical Hindu texts (śruti) known as the Vedas. Only one Shakha of the many survive today, namely the Śakalya Shakha. Much of the contents contained in the remaining Shakhas are now lost or are not available in the public forum.
Ynglism, institutionally the Ancient Russian Ynglist Church of the Orthodox Old Believers–Ynglings, is a white nationalist branch of Slavic paganism formally established in 1992 by Aleksandr Yuryevich Khinevich in Omsk, Russia, and legally recognised by the Russian state in 1998, although the movement was already in existence in unorganised forms since the 1980s. The adherents of Ynglism call themselves "Orthodox", "Old Believers", "Ynglings" or "Ynglists".
The Epic-Puranic chronology is a timeline of Hindu mythology based on the Itihasa and the Puranas. These texts have an authoritaive status in Indian tradition, and narrate cosmogeny, royal chronologies, myths and legendary events. The central dates here are the Kurukshetra War and the start of the Kali Yuga. The Epic-Puranic chronology is referred to by proponents of Indigenous Aryans to propose an earlier dating of the Vedic period, and the spread of Indo-European languages out of India, arguing that "the Indian civilization must be viewed as an unbroken tradition that goes back to the earliest period of the Sindhu-Sarasvati Valley traditions ."
Natalya Romanovna Guseva was a Russian ethnographer, historian, Indologist and writer.
The Russian Religion, also termed Russian Vedism, is one of the earliest doctrines of Rodnovery in Russia, founded in 1992 in Saint Petersburg by the psychologist and esoteric scientist Viktor Mikhaylovich Kandyba — revered as "Prophet Kandyba" within the movement — and his son Dimitry Viktorovich Kandyba. It is a monotheism based on Slavic heritage, and as such it has been compared to Ukrainian Sylenkoism. The concept of "Russian" in the name "Russian Religion" does not identify an ethnic identity, but a spiritual one, being used as a synonym of the concept of "Aryan".
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