The Orion, or Researches into the Antiquity of the Vedas c12.40.4

c12.40.4

but the *matter* remained the same, and coming down from such a remote antiquity it could have been easily believed by Jaimini, Pânini, and the Brahmâvadin of old to have been in existence almost from the beginning of the world, or rather the beginning of all known things. We can thus satisfactorily account for all the opinions and traditions current about the age of the Vedas amongst ancient and modern scholars in India and in Europe, if we place the Vedic period at about 4000 B. C, in strict accordance with the astronomical references and facts recorded in the ancient literature of India. When everything can thus be consistently explained, I leave it to scholars to decide whether the above period should or should not be accepted as determining, as correctly as it is possible to do under the circumstances, the oldest period of Aryan civilization. It is the unerring clock of the heavens that has helped us in determining it, and it is, in my opinion, hardly probable to discover better means for the purposes. The evidence was in danger of being obliterated out of the surface of the heavens, when the Greeks borrowed their astronomical terminology from the Egyptians. But it has fortunately escaped and outlived, not only this, but also another threatened attack when it was proposed in England and Germany to name the constellation of Orion after Nelson or Napoleon as a mark of respect for these heroes.