Written by a civil engineer, this is a thesis on global warming and climate change on Earth. The book begins by discussing the Aryan life in India about 8,000 years ago and which has been under controversy among Indian scholars and historians ever since the publication of Lokamanya Tilak'stheory entitled Arctic Home in the Vedas at the beginning of the 20th century. Tilak'sname, erudition and personality supported with convincing evidence from the Vedas gives much support to his theory in India and abroad too.
Similarly debate continues on whether the Aryans came from the West and drove the Dravidians far south or whether the Indus civilisation was Dravidian and destroyed by the invading Aryans or whether it represented the Aryans or belonged to the people who were residents of the sub-continent. However, what is more worrisome today are the natural calamities like the erratic monsoon, floods and tsunami; melting down of ice on the North and South Poles and threatening to submerge many land masses under water; untimely cold and heat waves engulfing many countries on Earth accompanied by misery and deaths of mankind; earthquakes; devastation. It is these which seem to have caught the fancy of VL Deshpande'simagination such that he decided to study all that he could and submit his thesis on it.
Deshpande'sthesis, as per his claim, is based on ancient Vedic literature and states that the axis of the Earth is not static at an angle of 23.5 degrees but its declination continues towards the sun at the rate of 14 seconds per year, that is from 20 degree to 55 degrees in 9,000 years before the axis returns to 20 degrees in another 9,000 years. Thus it moves 1 degree in about 257 years with this cycle continuing since time immemorial. Deshpande'stheory is that with the angle of declination increasing or with the axis tilting towards the sun, the Arctic Circle will also move southward, resulting in melting down of ice on the North Pole and unprecedented floods which are a common theme of the mythologies of our ancient civilisation. Also the Polar region would become increasingly inhabitable for human life.
According to Deshpande, once the movement of the axis of the earth is understood, the reasons of global warning and climatic change can be understood.
The author then examines Tilak'stheory of Aryan migration from the Arctic zone to India. What is more, the Puranas refer to the great Pamir Knot of Asia. The release of Ganga waters as the per the Puranas is explained on the basis of Deshpande'sthesis and the conclusion is that the glaciers began to melt about 10,000 years ago and the flow of Ganga water was restored by Shiva, though the possibility of a period of 1 to 2 degrees ?or a period of about 500 to even 1,000 years cannot be ruled out for an event of such an antiquity.?
Justifying the belief that the Aryans developed their civilisation around the Himalayas, Deshpande quotes Abu Zaid, who was told by a Chinese Emperor, ?The fourth in rank is the king of elephants, namely the king of India. We call him the king of wisdom because wisdom is the special characteristic of the Indians.? India was described as hot and humid which suited the elephants and hence the name. Another Chinese belief about Indians is: ?The inhabitants are ferocious and violent. They are devoted to magic and occult sciences, but they also believe in purifying their hearts and in escaping the vicissitudes of life and death by sundering world ties.?
The book draws the conclusion by presenting through mathematical calculations that the Aryans, instead of coming from the Arctic region through Europe to India, belonged to the north and south of the Himalayas and the Meru or Pamir mountain. Here they roamed around and reached Siberia, leaving traces of their civilisation wherever they went.
(Vichar Bharati Prakashan, 33 Bhalchandra Road, Dadar, Mumbai-110 014.)
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