The Vedic fathers of geology

130 Tur Vepic Faruers oF GEOLOGY.

may be noted with advantage. (Vide ante pp. 102, 103 )

The Vedic idea, therefore, that vitality first began to‘appear in weeds or 11675 ( पृथिव्या ओषधयः | Taitt. Up. II. 1), some three epochs before the advent of Man (ar aite4t: gat sar aaeafaat geri R. V. X. 97.1); that gradually the creative energy manifested itself in the form of a fish, all be it microscopic ; that then, it appeared in the form of a fortoise; that subsequently, it made its appearance in the mammalian order of the boar kind; and that finally, the creative power manifested itself in the form of Man, the crowning piece of progressive creation, after the intermediate or the connecting link of the Man-Lion,* seems to be marvelously correct in the main, even from the stand-point of the advanced Western Geological researches of modern times.

And here, by the bye, I cannot resist the temptation to state, that our Indian theory of TIncarnations, viz. first that of the Fish (ama: ), the second of the Tortoise (##: ), the third of

* For which, the Western Geologists substitute chimpanzee or the ape, Vide, however, ante pp, 89, 90, 91, where I have offered reasons for-the Vedie and Puréuic link of the Aan-Lion ( afeg), from the stand-point of our Indian Geologists,