It must, therefore, be a question of interest to Biblical students to determine, if possible, whether this Indian _first month_ has only so been counted (as some scholars tell us) since about 570 A.D., or whether it has so been counted from the same remote time as was the Accadian month Bar zig-gar, that is, possibly, from about 6,000 B.C. This question as to the month Chaitra forms part only of a larger controversy which has been long waged, concerning the antiquity, or otherwise, of the whole science of astronomy in India. To this larger controversy I have drawn attention in my Paper, _Astronomy in the Rig Veda_, read before the Congress of Orientalists assembled at Rome in 1899. In that Paper, arguments are put forward in support of the opinion that the Vedic bards possessed an acquaintance with the science of astronomy, and that much of the imagery of the hymns bore reference to the constellations of the Zodiac. For the gods Indra, Soma, Agni, and the Aswins, astronomic interpretations are proposed; and finally the question, which as it seems to me is one specially deserving the attention of the Society of Biblical Archæology--the question of the position of the month Chaitra as first month of the Indian year in Vedic and pre-Vedic times is discussed, and the claim that it was, and throughout remote ages had ever been, virtually the same month as the Accadian Bar zig-gar is insisted upon. Pursuing further the controversy concerning the antiquity of astronomy amongst the Aryan races, in the note on “Ahura Mazda” (p. 152), I proposed an identification of the Vedic Rudra with the Median god--the god who presided over the Median equinoctial year, marked by observation of the full moon in the constellation Sagittarius. Continuing then our enquiries into the astronomic myths of ancient India, let us turn our attention to the sons of Rudra--the _Maruts_. They are a group of gods very prominent among Vedic deities, and it is to be noted that Rudra is oftener alluded to in the Rig Veda as the father of the Maruts than in almost any other capacity. Now the Maruts--the stormy troop of Maruts--are celebrated as the companions and friends of Indra. They are “associated with him in innumerable passages.” Here, at first sight, it might seem that the proposed astronomical identification of Indra and Rudra as solstitial and equinoctial personifications must break down; for how should the sons of the equinoctial Rudra always appear as the devoted companions of the solstitial Indra?