t
adds that the "evil being, Angra-Mainyus (Ahriman), full of death, created
a mighty serpent, and winter, the work of the Devas. Ten months of winter
are there, two months of summer." Then follows, in the original document,
this statement: "Seven months of summer are (were?) there; five months of
winter were there. The latter are cold as to water, cold as to earth, cold
as to trees. There is the heart of winter; there all around falls deep
snow. There is the worst of evils." This passage has been set aside as an
interpolation by both Spiegel and Haug. But they give no reason for
supposing it such, except the difficulty of reconciling it with the
preceding passage. This difficulty, however, disappears, if we suppose it
intended to describe a great climatic change, by which the original home
of the Aryans, Aryana-Vaejo, became suddenly very much colder than before.
Such a change, if it took place, was probably the cause of the emigration
which transferred this people from Aryana-Vaejo (Old Iran) to New Iran, or
Persia. Such a history of emigration Bunsen and Haug suppose to be
contained in this first Fargard (or chapter) of the Vendidad. If so, it
takes us back further than the oldest part of the Veda, and gives the
progress of the Aryan stream to the south from its original source on the
great plains of Central Asia, till it divided into two branches, one
flowing into Persia, the other into India. The first verse of this
venerable document introduces Ormazd as saying that he had created new
regions, desirable as homes; for had he not done so, all human beings
would have crowded into this Aryana-Vaejo. Thus in the very first verse of
the Vendidad appears the affectionate recollection of these emigrant races
for their fatherland in Central Asia, and the Zoroasterian faith in a
creative and protective Providence. The awful convulsion which turned
their summer climate into the present Siberian winter of ten months'
duration was part of a divine plan. Old Iran would have been too
attractive, and all mankind would have crowded into that Eden. So the
evil Ahriman was permitted to glide into it, a new serpent of destruction,
and its seven months of summer and five of winter were changed to ten of
winter and two of summer.[135]

This Aryana-Vaejo, Old Iran, the primeval seat of the great Indo-European
race, is supposed by Haug and Bunsen to be situated on the high plains
northeast of Samarcand, between the thirty-seventh and fort