On Mar 31, 2010, at 6:14 AM, cardemaister wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal_Gangadhar_Tilak
Books
In 1903, he wrote the book The Arctic Home in the Vedas. In it he
argued that the Vedas could only have been composed in the Arctics,
and the Aryan bards brought them south after the onset of the last
Ice age. He proposed the radically new way to determine the exact
time of Vedas. Up to that time, antiquity of Vedas was mostly
decided by the form of the language used in it[citation needed]. He
tried to calculate the time of Vedas by using the position of
different Nakshatras. Positions of Nakshtras were described in
different Vedas. Knowing the motion of Nakshtras and their
positions (at the time of Vedas and current) we can calculate the
time of Vedas. Sri Tilak found that the vedas were written around
4500 B.C. , when the Vernal equinox was in the constellation of
Mṛiga or Orion during the period of the Vedic hymns, and that
it had receded to the constellation of the Kṛittikâs, or the
Pleiades (about 2500 B.C.) in the days of the Brâhmanas. This was
his basic idea. This idea was criticized by some scholars,[Who?]
praised by some others[Who?]. But originality and charm of this new
way of looking towards this problem was largely accepted.
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IMO, that book is well worth reading...
You'd probably also enjoy Joscelyn Godwin's classic Arktos: The Polar
Myth in Science, Symbolism and Nazi Survival.
It details the many polar myths of "We Hyperboreans".
http://www.amazon.com/Arktos-Polar-Science-Symbolism-Survival/dp/
0932813356
