Those who have studied this wonderful and mysterious collection of hymns most constantly and deeply are obliged to confess that it is still very imperfectly understood, and though it is agreed unanimously that the Gods of the Veda are personifications of the phenomena of nature, yet as to the exact phenomena underlying the various Vedic myths there is among scholars much difference of opinion. It is impossible not to feel in reading the hymns and the many speculations, notes, and comments appended to them, that notwithstanding all the labour and research bestowed on the work, much of this ancient Veda still remains a cypher, for the right understanding of which the modern reader does not possess the key. Guided by the teachings of archæology, I now make the suggestion that the key to this cypher may perhaps be found in crediting the authors of the Veda with a somewhat advanced knowledge of astronomy, and an acquaintance with the, to us, apparently fanciful constellations of the celestial sphere and Zodiac; and in assuming that the figures of the “ancient constellations” often supplied the basis of Vedic imagery. To pursue this possible clue towards the understanding of the myths, it were much to be desired that all students should be acquainted with the names and positions in the heavens of the forty-five constellations--so well distinguished by the epithet “ancient”--and that they should master some of the more easily observed conditions of their diurnal and annual apparent movements, as also those of the sun and moon, and further that they should have learnt what changes in the scenery of the heavens have been brought about by the slow movement known to astronomers as the “precession of the equinoxes.” Classical and philological scholars have however so rarely time and attention to spare from their own intensely interesting and important studies that as a rule astronomical phenomena are not much observed or considered by them. The accompanying diagrams drawn from a celestial precessional globe may, it is hoped, enable those, who have not as yet devoted thought to such subjects, to judge for themselves of the reasonableness or otherwise of the following astronomic suggestions concerning the most important of the Vedic gods. According to A. A. Macdonell--who in his late work _Vedic Mythology_ has summed up clearly and compendiously the opinions of a host of scholars on the nature of the Vedic gods--Indra is the favourite national god of the Rig Veda; he is celebrated in 250 hymns, a greater number than that “devoted to any other god, and very nearly one-fourth of the total number of hymns in the Rig Veda.”[53] [53] Macdonell, _Vedic Mythology_, p. 54.