The Vedic fathers of geology

Tue Patmozorc Hpoce. 113

In this statement, the special mention of the fact, that herbs or weeds had sprung up ञः ( चा ओषधीः प्री जाता ), some three Epochs before the advent of Gods—the superior huma beings—( Zaeafeat gt ), is of great moment, as it bespeaks but original investigation and great (reological Researeh on the part of our Vedic Fore-Farthers of the hoary past, and compares very favourably even with the accepted modern geological ideas, which also place the Proterozoic Hora and fauna in the Paleozoic Era,and the Man in the Tertiary or Coinozoic Epoch. While, in respect of the Fish, | may venture to state from the MahaBharata and the Puranic works, that our Geologists of the Epic and Puranic times had found, or at any rate were aware of, the oldest known fossil-fish, inasmuch as the Fish seems to have represented the earliest organic body in their works. This organic body was perhaps the smallest, not to say microscopic, and belonged to the pre-Cambrian period. While, the fishtype, moreover, appears to have been foreshadowed even in the Shatapatha Brahmama (vide I. 8.1.1). 1 may, therefore, quote here with advantage the very important and relevent observations of Professor John W. Judd, in regard to the earliest Indian life-types, as