in the sea blowing marshmallow
And smooth waves hit the air?»
Surprisingly close are these descriptions, separated by millennia, especially if we recall that the ode to M. V. Lomonosov is called «Evening Reflection on God’s Majesty in the Case of the Great Northern Lights» and ends with the words:
«Doubt is full of your answer
The fact that the nearest places
Tell me, if the light is wide?
What are the smallest stars further?
Ignorant creatures end you?
Tell me, since the Creator is great?»
S. V. Maksimov gives the story of his guide – a simple Pomors who says: «On Matka (Novaya Zemlya Island), our old people say, they play terribly flurries, and even then the villages are strong. In another winter, the whole sky burns the pillars walk and collide among themselves, as if the soldiers are fighting, and they will fall so beautifully! More often! …The worst in the big cold live and then, like a light show, and we’re familiar, but we’re very scared. On Matka, it’s as if old men are saying, even a rush bursts, as if from a gun clicks scary, really scary!»
Another description made by the authors of the article «Aurora Borealis» in the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, which emphasizes that only at the latitude of Novaya Zemlya and the coasts of the White and Barents Seas can one observe the most vivid and impressive form of aurora in the form of iridescent ribbons and curtains. «With a general yellowish coloration of the phenomenon in bright and rapidly changing kind of auroras, rays sometimes appear painted in other colors – mainly in red and green, less often in blue and violet».
If M. V. Lomonosov perceived the Northern Lights as a manifestation of God, even if such a sober prose writer like Fridtjof Nansen wrote words full of delight about him:
«What an endless game… Here, in the North, the future of the earth, here is beauty and death. But why? Why is this whole heavenly sphere created? Oh, read the answer in its blue starry space!,» then how does a person perceive his moment in ancient times – 6—8 thousand years ago. Probably, just as the incomprehensible, miraculous manifestation of the Supreme Deity to the people who worship him, the inhabitants of the polar regions of Eastern Europe, where we can, we repeat, on the coast of the White and Barents Seas see such a bright and multicolored spectacle, since closer to the pole the northern lights are more monotonous, and is just a yellowish glow, and to the south the phenomenon is generally extremely rare.
Northern Lights
Both the description of Mahabharata and the description of S. V. Maximov, separated by many millennia, emphasize such characteristic details as pain in the eyes from the brightest radiance, a state of dazzle and a piercing sound emitted by «flashes»: the sages «lost their frenzy from the radiance, lost their vision and other senses, didn’t see anything and only the sound spreading clearly perceived,» and «You can’t understand anything, you can’t figure anything out for one whole impression – everything gets in the way and gets confused. It hurts in my eyes… On Matka… flashes bursting». Such a detailed, detailed description can hardly be done without being an eyewitness to this phenomenon.
B. L. Smirnov writes that the apsars described in the «Mahabharat» living in the North, «rainbow waterdrops,» are difficult to interpret otherwise than the northern lights».
Northern Lights
Perhaps the image of the «radiant Hvarno» of the Avestan mythological tradition, hidden in the depths of the waters («Yasht.» XIX. 51—64) and which is a symbol of royal choice and power, is also associated with the Northern Lights.
This is evidenced by the following lines of the hymn dedicated to the sacred river Ardvisure-Anahita:
«Give me such luck
Kind, powerful Ardvisura Anahita,
So that I reach the royal Hvarno,
Which shines among Vorukash
Which is involved in the Aryan countries, current and future…»
The conclusion that «Hvarno» is the aurora is due to the fact that the Vorukash Sea and the «Milk Sea» of the Mahabharata are one and the same. In addition, it makes sense to recall that B. L. Smirnov notes: «The road to the North is accessible only to Narayana (the Leader of the people)», and it is he, i.e. the leader-king, endowed with «royal Hvarno», shining in the middle of the sea of Vorukash, in the ancient Iranian tradition.
Northern Lights
N. K. Roerich. Moses is the leader
Thus, it can be assumed that in Aryan antiquity the «Leader of the people» could only become one who had the strength and courage to get to a certain «White Island», located in the north-west of the coast of the «Milk Sea» in high northern latitudes and, having received grace in the form of the light of the Northern Lights, return back.
Chapter 3 Polar dawns
But not only for the continuous night and the auroras illuminating it, but for the continuous day there are indications in the Vedas.
«The duration of daylight hours in winter in the Subpolar Urals is 4—6 hours… To the north of the Arctic Circle in the second half of December is a polar night. Sometimes the aurora plays out, the sky is covered with ribbons shimmering with all the colors of the rainbow, and the mountains and tundra are illuminated by a greenish phosphoric light. All June and July in the Ural North white nights. In their watches the birds singing, nature plunges into a dream; the sky and clouds turn pink and fawn, an extraordinary silence sets in, «this is how modern authors describe the Subpolar Urals, and in the same way, the singers of Mahabharata described their sacred mountains.
Polar night in summer. New Earth
Near the pole, it is observed as the sun, rising to a certain height above the horizon, stops, stands still and then goes back. The Vedas say: «The sun god stopped his chariot in the midst of heaven» or:
«3. The blessed red mares of Surya
climbed to the back of the sky
4. In the midst of work, he collects stretched fabric
As soon as he harnessed from the place of the red horses The night right there stretches outfit for himself» (R.V. I. 115)
This image cannot be explained otherwise than by the fact that the movement of the sun in northern latitudes is observed. In another place of the Rigveda it is said: «God Varuna rocked the sun in the sky, as if on a swing.»
Where else can you see a similar picture, except in the circumpolar countries, where the sun in the summer does not hide behind the horizon, but only bends to it and again leaves, as if swinging.
Polar day and night. Kola Peninsula
N. R. Guseva emphasizes; that: «Since the arrival of the Aryans in the Arctic, the lunar calendar has played a decisive role in calculating the months… In the polar regions, the moon on the days of the full moon passes through the» north point» 13 times a year, which means it lasts 13 lunar months all year.. In the Rigveda and other monuments of ancient literature, the moon is devoted to so many hymns and so many