The name of Bal Gangadhar Tilak is known to every Indian schoolkid as one of the towering figures in India’s struggle for Independence from the British Raj. It may take much longer to discover, quite accidentally - that Tilak’s intellectual faculties extended far beyond politics.

After his job as a teacher of mathematics, Tilak authored two large treatises of comparative mythology in which he attempted something remarkable - the astronomical dating of the Vedas, reaching the astonishing conclusion that these ancient scriptures were composed prior to 4000 BC by Aryans dwelling in the Arctics, who thereafter migrated to the Indian peninsula.

I realize that this sounds like a mixture of Erik von Daniken and Immanuel Velikovsky but I don’t care whether this is true or not (for this is impossible to verify). What strikes me here is simply the use of scientific rhetoric for the establishment of a culturally superior position in the political debate of Tilak’s time. I am quite sure that his arguments remain controversial to this day, but no less fascinating.

The tomes in questions are: 1) “Orion” or The Antiquity Of The Vedas and its sequel, 2) The Arctic Home of The Vedas.