It is unnecessary now to further pursue the pros and cons of what has hitherto been said and written on the vexed questions as to the originality and antiquity of astronomy in India, and especially as to the Indian acquaintance with the twelve-fold divisions of the Zodiac, and the date of the fixation of the initial point in their Zodiac. We have seen that by the majority the Grecian and modern theory is the favoured one. Within the last quarter of a century, however, an unexpected reinforcement has come into the field, in aid of the disheartened and nearly silenced minority, who still believe in a great antiquity for the science of astronomy in India. The researches of archæologists in Western Asia have of late brought to our knowledge vast hoards of information concerning the ancient inhabitants of Babylonia and Assyria, and the surrounding highlands and plains; amongst other matters, concerning the science of astronomy possessed by these peoples. In 1874, a Paper entitled _The Astronomy and Astrology of the Babylonians_ was read by Professor Sayce before the “Society of Biblical Archæology,” and since that date other Papers, by various authors, dealing with the subject have appeared in the same Society’s _Proceedings_. Also in the _Zeitschrift für Assyriologie_, articles have been contributed by such writers as Epping and Strassmaier, Oppert, Mayer, Mahler, Jensen, Lehmann, and others, in which the calendars and astronomical methods in use in Mesopotamia are discussed. Epping and Strassmaier’s _Astronomisches aus Babylon_ and Jensen’s _Die Kosmologie der Babylonier_, are important volumes devoted to these same matters. Whatever else concerning the subject of all these writings remains uncertain and open to discussion, some facts are clearly established. We now know that the inhabitants of Babylonia in a remote age (certainly as early as the fourth millenium B.C.) were acquainted with the twelve divisions of the Zodiac, and that these divisions were imagined under figures closely resembling in almost every instance those now depicted on our celestial globes. The calendar used by the Accadians, and later by the Semitic Babylonians and Assyrians, was indeed based on the observance of the Zodiacal constellations and of the journeyings through them of the sun and moon. The varying positions of the planets, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn are also noted by references to the Zodiacal asterisms: and not only Zodiacal, but several of the extra-Zodiacal ancient constellations are represented on the monuments. All this information gained from the cuneiform tablets concerning the science of astronomy in Western Asia must undoubtedly affect the judgment of enquirers into the history of the same science in India.