The Vedic fathers of geology

GEOLOGICAL ANTIQUITY OF THE VEDAS. 5%

the region of that very river, flowing in Aryavarta. Now, if the Primitive Fore-fathers of our Rzg-Vedic ancestors had seen the jirst drops of water, or the showers of rain, dropping from the clouds, before every thing else, in the Land ofthe Seven Rivers, and nowhere in Central Asia, nor in Northern Europe, norin the Arctic’ Regions ; if they were the first observers of the light or the Dawn, in the region of Beeas (the Vipasha); and if, moreover, they had also seen the Sun for the first time, rising above the horizon in the region of this very river—the Vipash—of AryAvarta, and nowhere else; then, certainly, the natural inference is, that the Land of birth of our Primitive Ancestors, was Arydvarta and Arydvarta only, and no other whatever. As such, therefore, we are autochthonous im India, and not immigrants into the Land of the Seven Rivers. Moreover, we find that Indra, the Lord of the whole Universe ( विश्वस्य जगतः पाणतस्पातिः ॥ Rig-Veda. I. 101. 5 ), had, jirst and before all, (saat ) procured water! and light! (ar afaezq) 1 गाः (धेनवः) ० 003 71687, 17 the Rig-Veda, both Light and Water. (vide R.V. 1.32. 11; I, 92.1 ; OT, i.7;1V, 22.6). For, while in (I, 92.1) Sdyans inter-’ prets गाः 28 meaning रद्मीन्‌ ( rays ), in (IV. 22. 6) he

explains aq: feraa ७ 51०९ गावः प्रकर्षेण क्षीरं भरते ४ ‘“ The rain makes showers of fertilising water.”