Meru Mountains
Hyperborea and Aryan ancestral homeland
S. V. Zharnikova
Editor Алексей Германович Виноградов
Translator Алексей Германович Виноградов
© S. V. Zharnikova, 2025
© Алексей Германович Виноградов, translation, 2025
ISBN 978-5-0065-5427-6
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
S.V. Zharnikova
Collection of scientific papers S.V. Zharnikova’s “Meru Mountains” (Hyperborea and Aryan ancestral homeland) is devoted to the problem of identifying the main centers of the Aryan ancestral homeland – the Meru Mountains (Hara and Kukarya mountains, Riphean and Hyperborean mountains). The works presented in it give an answer to the question of their location. These articles outline the circle of lands of the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans – Hyperboreans; find ancient Aryan cities, rivers, sacred reservoirs.
Russia is a country of eternal changes and completely non-conservative, their country is beyond conservative customs, where historical times live, and do not part with rituals and ideas. The Russians are not a young people, but the old ones – like the Chinese. They are very old, ancient, conservatively preserved all the oldest and do not refuse it. In their language, their superstition, their disposition, etc., one can study the most ancient times. (Victor von Hen. 1870)
Arctic India
Dear readers do not be confused by such a strange phrase – Arctic India. We are not the first to pronounce it. 94 years ago, in 1903, a book was published in Bombay under the even more intriguing title “The Arctic Home in the Vedas”. Its author, an outstanding scientist and public figure B. G. Tilak, who for many years studied the Vedas, Mahabharata, Puranas and Avesta, came to the conclusion that the most ancient ancestral home of the Aryans was somewhere near the Arctic Circle.
And he certainly had reasons for such a statement. It is worth recalling, for example, many hymns of the Rig Veda, where the period of “shimmering twilight”, called the dawn, is mentioned, where it is said about a long, many-day night, that the constellation Seven Rishis (Ursa Major) is always visible high in the sky. Or the words of the “Laws of Manu” that “the Sun separates day and night – human and divine… The gods have day and night (human) year, again divided in two: day – the period of movement of the Sun to the north, night – the period of movement to sub.” But this is a polar day and a polar night! There are other examples of observations of the ancestors of the Aryans for the specific natural phenomena of the Arctic.
So in the “Tale of Galava” by Mahabharata Garuda, telling about the northern ascended country washed by the waters of the Milky Sea, he talks about the constellations that make a complete revolution around the motionless Dhruva (the Polar Star) during one night. The belt of these constellations beyond the horizon is definitely indicated: these are the Seven Rishis (Ursa Major), Arunhati (Cassiopeia constellation), and Swati (Medusa star from the polar constellation Perseus). But all these constellations do not go beyond the horizon and describe a circle that can be traced during one winter night (since there is simply no night here in summer) only in areas not further than 56° N. It is well known that the farther north the geographic position of the observer, the greater the radius of non-stopping stars.
It is in the north, according to Mahabharata, that is the zenith of Vishnupada. But the North Star is at its zenith at the North Pole or in the Subpolar countries.
Interestingly, even in the 11th century Abureyhan Biruni noted that in India they “reverently revere the Big Dipper and the North Pole” and believe that “the Pole is Vishnu, to whom the inhabitants of paradise obey; he also is the time that creates and grows, destroys and destroys.” He was genuinely surprised that the Indians knew stars located north of the Arctic Circle, but did not have an idea about the South Pole. Here, probably, it is necessary to recall the descriptions of the Northern Lights – “Apsars living in the North” and sparkling over the Milk (that is, the White Sea).
You must admit that such vast and most importantly very accurate information, transmitted in sacred texts from generation to generation for many millennia, could be obtained and retained only by people who knew the northern lands well and to whom this knowledge was very dear.
We can only regret that the book of B. G. Tilak was never translated into Russian. Perhaps that is why most Soviet scientists were very skeptical of the theory of the polar ancestral home of the Aryans. They believed that the ancestors of the Aryans, who lived in ancient times along the Black Sea, never visited the more northern regions. And information about the Sub-Polar Region was received from the semi-wild tribes, who probably lived in the North of Europe.
Among those who accepted the ideas of B.G. Tilak was the Russian scientist E. Jelachich, who published in 1910 the book “The Far North as the Homeland of Humanity”. Moreover, perhaps, a remarkable Russian researcher, academician A.
I. Sobolevsky, who believed that the ancient Indo-Iranian language lies at the heart of the geographical names of the Russian North.
And only very recently interest in the polar theory of B. G. Tilak has increased dramatically. More and more scientists of our country share his ideas and find him more and more new confirmations. The author for a long time collected, studied and analyzed the geographical names of the European north of Russia. And today we would like to share some results of this work.
Let’s start with such a seemingly strange circumstance that back in 1605, at the court of the Russian tsars, the lands of Russia on the White Sea coast were called India. It is worth noting that in the 17th century, Russian people knew very well where the Hindustan Peninsula is located, with which there was lively trade, and all the more well knew the coast of the Arctic Ocean. And if at the same time they talked about India in the Subpolar region, then they had good reason for this.
After all, back in the early 16th century, travelers wrote that the population living on the banks of the Dvina River “has their own language, although they speak more Russian”, that “the Pechora River has a city and the Papin fortress… its inhabitants speak different from Russian language, called papini. “By 1691, there was a message about the North Russian city, called the Indiager neighbors, that is, the “Indian city”.
And, finally, at the beginning of the 20th century, in the church books of the city of Kholmogory, located near the confluence of the Northern Dvina in the White Sea, the legend that the first settlers in these parts were Chur and Nal, who lived here in ancient times, was preserved. It was with the times of Kura that folk rumor was connected by flint tools and arrows washed from the banks of the river.
It is believed that in honor of Kura and Nalya two islands are named, on which the ancient Kholmogory were located – Kur Island and Nal Island. According to legend, the descendants of the Kura grew over time into a powerful independent people who owned the whole North, the people whom the neighbors called the White-Eye Miracle for their surprisingly bright eyes. Until the beginning of the 20th century, legends about heroic strength, powerful growth, the ability to fly through the air and talk with each other at a great distance from the descendants of the Kura remained in the people. They also associated the appearance north of Kholmogor of the Pur-Navolok fortress, from which the city of Arkhangelsk subsequently grew.
In Mahabharata, Vishnupada is named after a stream that originates in the Kailash plateau. Scientists were somewhat puzzled by the fact that Kailas is in the south in Hindustan, the epos directly points to the north. Perhaps this contradiction can be explained by the following: at Kholmogor the Pinega River flows into the Dvina. It flows in the red-brown shores, takes its source from a flat hill. And this source is called the Kailash River.
By the way, there are a lot of such interesting geographical names in the European North of Russia. Here are some of them. The highest peak of the Subpolar