Page 159 - Swatantrata to Atmanirbharta : Lokmanya Tilak’s legacy

3. India as a Civilisational Entity

We are often told that we had no sense of nationhood or
of being Indian before British rule. This is far from true and
Lokmanya was keen on establishing this.

Most historical works during the British occupation of India,
carried forward the mindset of the colonisers. Research was also
an instrument of propaganda to show the world the greatness
of the colonisers and to prove the colonised as inferior in every
way. Today, the Aryan invasion theory itself is being questioned.
Indeed, there is increasing evidence that the Indus Saraswati
civilisation is older than the Greek and Roman civilisations and
lasted for a longer period.

Lokmanya Tilak through his books “The Arctic home in the
Vedas” and “The Orion or Researches into the Antiquity of
the Vedas”, inquired into the origin of India as a civilisational
entity. When we talk of Swadharma and Swabhimaan surely
a large part of it comes from awareness of our civilisation and
asserting it before a larger global audience. This is exactly what
Lokmanya endeavoured to do.
Lokmanya Tilak was one of the few non - European historians
of those times to research on topics such as the origins of India’s
civilisation and the Aryans. Due to his training as a lawyer and
then his chosen professions of a teacher and journalist, he had
cultivated both a keen, inquiring mind and the ability to put
forth his thoughts and arguments succinctly.

Traditionally, most popular history texts in India have
postulated the theory that the Aryans came to India in 1500 BC
and therefore the Vedas must have been composed much later.
Today, based on archaeological findings, we know that this date
was entirely arbitrary. In his book “The Orion or Researches
into the Antiquity of the Vedas”, Lokmanya Tilak was one of
the early scholars to argue that that astronomical references in
Vedic literature point to a period before 1500 BC. He argued for
instance that as per Vedic hymns, the Spring or Vernal Equinox
was in the constellation of Mriga or Orion and deduced that this
happened around 4500 BC. The Brahmanas were composed
when the Vernal Equinox was in the Krittika or Pleiades

157 Swatantrata to Atmanirbharata