The Vedic fathers of geology

Grorocican Anriquiry or Tun VEDAS. 99 ment and fear knew no bounds ; and that at the advent of the great Ice-Age, the once genial climate of the Arctic Regions having been replaced by extreme, not to say unbearable cold, and the higher latitudes having been covered with Ice-caps of enormous thickness, such of our colonists as had made settlements there, were compelled to retrace their steps back to their Mother-land Aryavarta, by the direction of the Snow-clad Himalaya, which was ever in their minds, and which they always remembered and cherished with fondness, as the Northern Bounaary ( sat Fe ) of their Beloved Bharata-varsha. [ shall, therefore, venture to recapitulate some evidence here, in brief, to save reference, for our present purpose.

Manu, our very ancient, famous, and wellinformed Law-giver (vide ante p. 8 ), has in his aaeara or the Code of Laws, declared Brahmnivarta ( Head ) to be the God-created region, situated in AryAvarta and between the two divine rivers, the Sarasvati and the Drishadyati (II. 17). Evidently, this was supposed to be the scene of creation (vide Muir’s Original Sanskrit Teatey yol IL. p 400. Second Revised Edition ), and the pronouncement appears to have been made by Manu, not in the least without strong grounds. For, it surely rests upon solid facts, traditional evidence, and eyen Vedic authority, which, therefore, we shall proceed to examine presently.