Page:The Life of Lokamanya Tilak.djvu/356

 scholars have at last grudgingly accepted. The Arctic Home proves that the cradle of the Aryans was not the Caucasus mountain, but the effulgent region of the North Pole. Both these volumes have suggested new view-points and have compelled Sanskritists to revise their estimates regarding the early history of the Aryan race. Mr. Tilak's commentary on the Gita establishes a new and convincing theory of Karma-yoga, These books are not mere compilations. They strike out a novel line of thought and research. The intellect of Gokhale and Telang was merely assimilative ; that of Tilak and Ranade was original and creative. In the Arctic Home, for instance, Mr. Tilak has given quite new and extremely convincing interpretations of nearly 80 verses in the Rig-veda, besides throwing ample light on more than twice the number. It should be remembered that these verses had baffled students of the Vedas from Sayana of the hoary past to the most recent Sanskrit scholar of Europe or America. Nor was this all. The Vedic Mythology, hitherto explained from Yaska downwards on the Storm or Dawn theory, had presented several knotty problems to the end of the last century and it was reserved for Mr. Tilak to establish the theory of " cosmic circulation of serial waters " by means of which the legends of Indra and Vritra, of Saptavadhri, of Aditi and her seven flourish- ing and one still born son, of Surya's wheel and of Dirghatamas, became fully intelligible. These studies filled his mind with a thousand and one new and inter- esting ideas regarding the evolution of the Hindu Religion and Philosophy. He was eager to develop these ideas and incorporate them in two or three