Vedic Age

Friday, February 3 2012, 12:16 PM

Expansion of Aryans into India

1. The treaty between Hitties and Mitannis dating to 1400 BC refers to Indra, Mitra, Varuna and
Nasatya and curiously omits Agni and Soma - the important gods in Rig Veda.
2. The earliest Aryans lived in the region of E Afghanistan, NWFP, Punjab and fringes of
W UP. Afghan R. Kubah and some other rivers are also mentioned in Rig Veda. Yamuna is referred
to as twin of Ganga and Sutlej was associated with Beas - so neither were tributaries of Saraswati.
They chose Punjab plains because they were now semi arid (due to climate change) and ideal for
pastoral activities.
3. The river Saraswati is identified as R. Harakhwati or the present R. Helmand flowing in
Afghanistan. The name Saraswati was transfered from here to India.
4. In the Later Vedic Age, they moved to doab region. The 10 tribes battle mentioned in Rigveda talks
about some tribes (Agra, Yakshu, Shigru) which resided in the doab region. The Kurus occupied Delhi
and the upper portion of the doab, the Panchala occupied middle
doab. In W UP, they came up against OCP cultures.
5. The Panchala kingdom consisted of modern districts of Barely, Badaun and Farukhabad.
6. Towards the end of later Vedic age, they moved further east into E UP and N Bihar. Here they had to
fight people using "black and red" pottery.
7. We know about this expansion in the later vedic period because the PGW sites excavated show a
thickness of 1 to 3 meters indicating a settlement of 1 to 3 centuries and were not preceded by any
habitation.

Economic Life
Early Vedic Age

1. They knew about agriculture, sowing, threshing, ploughing etc. But perhaps they used it only to grow f
odder and were primarily pastoralists.

Later Vedic Age

1. The importance of agriculture grew so much that even kings didn't hesitate in taking to plough. Eg.
Janak and Balram. It was only later that agriculture came to be banned for higher varnas as its relative
importance diminished and urbanization grew.

Politico-admin Life
Early Vedic Age

1. The head of a large pastoral ground was called vrajapati and he led kulapas (head of family) and
graminis (head of fighting hordes) into the battle.
2. In the beginning, the gramini was just the head of a small tribal fighting unit. But as the unit settled, he
became the head of the village and in course of time, became identical to vrajapati.
3. By and large it was a tribal form of government with strong militaristic elements. The civil character of
the administration was missing because people were constantly moving as pastoral nomads.

Social Life
Evolution of Varna System

1. The term "vaishya" emerges from the vis or the mass of tribal people. Vis was the unit above "gram"
and below "jana".
2. The unequal division of war booty (with more going to the chief) and influence of religion /
knowledge led to the stratification of the society into warriors, priests and rest (vis).

Women

1. In vedic age, the widow merely had to do a symbolic self immolation act at the death of her husband
and it may have been a sign of status. Later on this was cited as the origin of sati with some tweaking
of the practice in the religious texts.
2. Things had not settled down yet. There are many variants of marriages among pandavas only -
endogamy, monogamy, polygamy, polyandry and cousin marriage (Arjun and Subhadra).

Education

1. The method of grammar and memorization of vedas was not simple and was fine tuned to making the
composition almost unalterable (hymns had to be uttered in the right manner) and thus contributing to
the supremacy of brahmans.
2. Education was open to only twice born and the curriculum was such that it was useful only for
brahmans. Hence the supremacy of brahmans.

After Life Philosophy

1. Life after death was envisaged in terms of either punishment (you go to the house of clay) or reward
(you go to the world of fathers). The idea of transmigration of soul was initially vague and was
developed only later.
2. Upanishads encouraged the philosophy that souls were reborn into a life of sorrow or joy depending
upon their deeds in the previous life and nothing could be changed now. This was then fitted into the
caste hierarchy (higher caste means good deeds and lower caste means bad deeds). Upanishads also
encouraged renunciation.

Sacrifices as Ritual and Social Exchange

1. There were occasions when the bards composed eulogies on the exploits of the chiefs and were
rewarded with gifts. Gradually it became ritualized with hymns and elaborate sacrifices coming up to
bestow legitimacy to the king in exchange for gifts. Gradually the priests began to confer divinity on the
kings by the rituals. Sacrifices thus became an instrument of a power struggle between the king and the
priest - with the priest eventually winning. These ceremonies initially began to enhance the status of the
king but gradually became necessary for him to claim any legitimacy.
2. In these ceremonies he was supposed to donate all his wealth - either in the preparation of the
sacrifice, or at the end of the sacrifice among the brahmans and other people (including craftsmen) and
whatever remained had to be destroyed. This donation naturally kept a check on the wealth of the king
and hence large states couldn't come up and thus helped in maintaining the supremacy of the brahmans.
Further, it was held that such donation was a way of earning even more wealth and thus legitimized the
extraction of even more wealth from the vis by the king (hence the statement - the king (later replaced
by kshatriya) eats the vis). Only later on when the agriculture production became so much that it was
not possible to exhaust the wealth in the sacrifice that the kings were able to accumulate wealth and
large kingdoms began to be founded.
3. This situation led to a reaction of some kshatriyas against the brahmans. Thus it comes as no surprise
that the founders of Jainism and Buddhism were both kshatriyas or the ideas in the upanishads
questioning the sacrifices all came from kshatriyas. Also the republics were controlled by kshatriyas
only who didn't confer to the brahmanical traditions and rituals and in turn were condemned by the
brahmans (who championed the cause of monarchy).
4. This was extended to others as well and the patron of the sacrifice was now supposed to give a
dakshina. The status of the patron depended upon how elaborate sacrifices he conducts and how
much dakshina he gives. Soon it was held that a fraction of the benefit from the sacrifice also accrues
to the patron. Any kind of material benefit (like property, son etc.) had to be prayed for and this
further increased the power of brahmans.
5. Gradually even more spectacular sacrifices were evolved and now only the higher castes could
participate in them. Thus sacrifices worked to reinforce the societal divisions. RItuals also meant a
redistribution of resources and thus contributed to social inequalities.
6. As the sacrifices began to grow more elaborate, priests had to specialize in certain function and this led
to creation of classes among the priests as well.
7. The worship of agni and soma were central to Indian and Iranian religions. Vedic sacrifices also
produced the knowledge of mathematics and anatomy. Also the increased importance of agni meant
that instead of burials, dead began to be cremated.
8. The dasas were ridiculed in the vedas for not practicing rituals and instead practicing fertility cults. The
growing complexities and exclusions of the rituals finally led to alternate philosophies and sects.