This argument of Dr. Haug's seems correct as far as the date of the establishment of the ceremonial is concerned, and it is curious that several scholars who have lately written on the origin of the Vedic calendar, and the possibility of its foreign origin, should not have perceived the intimate relation between that calendar and the whole ceremonial system of the Brahmans. Dr. Haug is, no doubt, perfectly right when he claims the invention of the Nakshatras, or the Lunar Zodiac of the Brahmans, if we may so call it, for India; he may be right also when he assigns the twelfth century as the earliest date for the origin of that simple astronomical system on which the calendar of the Vedic festivals is founded. He calls the theories of others, who have lately tried to claim the first discovery of the Nakshatras for China, Babylon, or some other Asiatic country, absurd, and takes no notice of the sanguine expectations of certain scholars, who imagine they will soon have discovered the very names of the Indian Nakshatras in Babylonian inscriptions. But does it follow that, because the ceremonial presupposes an observation of the solstitial points in about the twelfth century, therefore the theological works in which that ceremonial is explained, commented upon, and furnished with all kinds of mysterious meanings, were composed at that early date? We see no stringency whatever in this argument of Dr. Haug's, and we think it will be necessary to look for other anchors by which to fix the drifting wrecks of Vedic literature. Dr. Haug's two volumes, containing the text of the Aitareya-brâhma_n_a, translation, and notes, would probably never have been published, if they had not received the patronage of the Bombay Government. However interesting the Brâhma_n_as may be to students of Indian literature, they are of small interest to the general reader. The greater portion of them is simply twaddle, and what is worse, theological twaddle. No person who is not acquainted beforehand with the place which the Brâhma_n_as fill in the history of the Indian mind, could read more than ten pages without being disgusted. To the historian, however, and to the philosopher they are of infinite importance--to the former as a real link between the ancient and modern literature of India; to the latter as a most important phase in the growth of the human mind, in its passage from health to disease. Such books, which no circulating library would touch, are just the books which Governments, if possible, or Universities and learned societies, should patronise; and if we congratulate Dr. Haug on having secured the enlightened patronage of the Bombay Government, we may congratulate Mr. Howard and the Bombay Government on having, in this instance, secured the services of a bonâ fide scholar like Dr. Haug.[44] _March, 1864._