The Vedic Age is a time period located from 1500BCE-600BCE.

It is characterized by the
composition of the Vedas and changing the social fabric of India. It is a far cry form the
cultures in terms of social organisation and economic relationships between its inhabitants.
This answer will seek to focus on the correlation between the developments of this age and
the socio-economic conditions that reigned during this time period.

Economy:
The Early Vedic society was pastoral; cattle rearing was the dominant occupational activity.
A pastoral society relies more on its animal wealth than agricultural produce. Pastoralism is
a subsistence strategy adopted by people who live in areas where large scale agriculture is
not feasible due to some environmental and to a certain extent, cultural constraints.
Animals such as horses, goats, and sheep are mentioned in the family books, but
cattle were clearly prized the most. R. S. Sharma has drawn attention to the many
derivations of the word gau (cow) in the Rig Veda. Hymns of the Rigveda yield extensive
evidence of the importance of cattle in the Early Vedic society. Many linguistic expressions
in the Rigveda are associated
with the cow (gau). Cattle was the chief measure of wealth and a wealthy man who owned
many cattle was called ‘gomat’. The terms used for conflicts and battles in this period were
gavishti, gavesana, gavyat, etc. cows. Kinship units are labelled as gotra. All these terms are
derived from the word gau and suggest that social relations and all-important areas of
Rigvedic life centred round the rearing of cows. Scholars have concluded that cattle
rearing was of overwhelming importance whereas agriculture was either a subsidiary
activity or one that was practised by non-Indo-Aryans. However, R. N. Nandi has drawn
attention to the many references to agricultural activity in the Rig Veda and argues that it
was by no means marginal.
Hymns refer to warriors, priests, cattle-rearers, farmers, hunters, barbers, and vintners. The
crafts mentioned include chariot-making, cart-making, carpentry, metal working, tanning,
the making of bows and bowstrings, sewing, weaving, and making mats out of grass or
reeds. Some of these occupations and crafts may have been the jobs of full-time specialists.
There are hardly any references to metallurgical activities in the Rig Veda, and very few of
these occur in the family books. Some scholars have interpreted the references to ayas,
metal objects, and metallurgical activity in the Rig Veda as indicative of iron artefacts and
iron
working. However, there is no definite evidence that this was so. There is in fact no clear or
conclusive reference to iron in the family books. Ayas could have meant copper, copper-
bronze, or may have been a generic term for metals.
Anthropological studies have brought out the importance of gift exchanges in simple
societies, and some of their observations are useful for understanding the culture reflected
in the Rig Veda. It is not the individual but groups (families, clans, tribes) who make the
exchanges and are bound by their obligations. Such exchanges—known as prestations—do
not only involve material goods of economic value. They also involve the exchange of other
things such as courtesies, entertainments, military assistance, ritual, women, children,
dances, feasts, and hospitality.
War booty was a major source of wealth. The rajan and the assemblies must have had a say
in the redistribution of war booty, and the rajan and his immediate kinsmen must have got a
larger share. Apart from cattle, other items solicited in prayers and sacrifices include houses,
horses, gold, fertile fields, friends, plentiful food, wealth, jewels, chariots, fame, and
children.
The notion of individual private property ownership as we understand it—associated with
the right to buy, sell, gift, bequeath, and mortgage—did not exist. The clan as a whole
enjoyed rights over major resources such as land and herds.

Social:
There are numerous references to cattle rearing and cattle raiding indicating that these
were the primary activities of the RV people. Many of the conflicts are with the dasas who
are mentioned as being wealthy and having cattle. Although earlier the differences between
the dasas and Aryans was seen to be of varna, i.e., colour, and it was assumed that the
dasas were dark skinned in comparison to the white skinned Aryans, it is now largely argued
that varna implied cultural differences rather than racial ones. The Avesta also refers to
daha and dahyus as ‘other people’. Later, in the Vedic texts, the term dasa came to mean
one who did menial tasks or was enslaved. However, the society was not divided into polar
categories as we do find eminent dasas. The Panis(literally, ‘those who possess wealth’)
were the others with whom there is considerable hostility- some instances refer to
merchants and in others to stingy people who did not perform sacrifices and hid their
wealth. They could have been caravan traders who controlled certain exchange systems or
routes.
The household was the basic unit of labour, and there is no mention of wage labour. The Rig
Veda is, however, familiar with slavery. Slavery, is an extreme form of social subordination.
A slave, whether male or female, has no rights, power, autonomy, or honour, is considered
the property of the master, and is obliged to perform all kinds of services, no matter how
menial. The Rig Veda refers to enslavement in the course of war or as a result of debt. The
fact that in later times, dasa and dasi are terms used for male and female slaves, suggests
that initially, ethnic differences may have been an important basis of enslavement. As
pointed out by Gerda Lerner (1986), in all cultures, throughout history, there was an
important difference in the experience of enslavement for men and women—for women,
enslavement generally involved sexual exploitation in addition to exploitation of their
labour.
Although the family books reflect differences in rank and some inequalities in wealth, these
do not add up to distinct socio-economic classes in the sense of significant differences in
access to and control over basic productive resources. However, the absence of a class
hierarchy does not mean that Rig Vedic society was egalitarian. The family books reflect
inequalities between masters and slaves, and between men and women. The rajan stood at
the top of the ladder of political and social power and status, the dasi stood at the very
bottom.

Women: Nineteenth-century socio-religious reformers and nationalist historians of the

early 20th century often presented the Vedic age as a golden age for women .They pointed
out that the Vedic people worshipped goddesses; the Rig Veda contains hymns composed
by women; there are references to women sages; women participated in rituals along with
their husbands; they took part in chariot races and attended the sabha and various social
gatherings. Such a presentation of the ‘high’ position of women in Vedic society can be seen
as a response to the oppression and humiliation of colonial rule.
There is a close connection between relations within the household, marriage and kinship
systems, the control of women’s sexuality and reproduction, class and caste relations, and
larger political structures.
In the older writings, a great part of the discussion about women of the Vedic age focused
on elite women, ignoring the less privileged members of this sex. Although the Rig Veda
mentions goddesses, none of them are as important as the major gods. While such
worship does at least mark the ability of a community to visualize the divine in feminine
form, it does not automatically mean that real women enjoyed power or privilege. The
proportion of hymns attributed to women in the Rig Veda is miniscule (just 12–15 out of
over 1,000), as is the number of women sages. This suggests that women had limited access
to sacred learning. There are no women priests in the Rig Veda. While women participated
as wives in sacrifices performed on behalf of their husbands, they did not perform sacrifices
in their own right; nor do they appear as givers or receivers of dana or dakshina. The Vedic
household was clearly patriarchal and patrilineal, and women enjoyed relatively little
control over material resources. Their sexuality and reproductive resources were controlled
through the ingraining of norms of what was considered appropriate behaviour.
Early Vedic literature has several words for household units—durona, kshiti, dam/ dama,
pastya, gaya, and griha—which may have corresponded to different kinds of households.
Considering that this was a patriarchal and patrilineal society, it is not surprising that Rig
Vedic prayers are for sons, not daughters, and that the absence of sons is deplored. The Rig
Veda attaches importance to the institution of marriage and refers to various types of
marriage—monogamy, polygyny, and polyandry. The rituals indicate post-puberty
marriages, and there are references to women choosing their husbands. A woman could
remarry if her husband died or disappeared. Hymns pleading for the birth of sons show
that the society was male-centric but unmarried daughters are also mentioned with
affection. However, the RV also shows anxiety about unmarried daughters in their father’s
home.

Varna System: Male dominance and the subordination of women is a feature of all
known historical societies. The issue is one of the degree of dominance and subordination,
and the structures in which these were embedded. Compared to later Vedic literature, the
family books of the Rig Veda Samhita reflect a situation in which social status was not as
rigidly defined or polarized as it came to be in later times. However, it was not a society of
equals—rank and gender were the two main bases of inequality.
The Purushasukta refers to how the brahmana was the mouth of the creator (Purusha), the
rajanya ( arms), the vaishya ( thighs) and the shudra was born from the feet. In the
initial phases society was divided on the basis of rank and status, the varna mechanism
came later. Moreover, some of the taboos related to inter-dining and marriage, were still
not mentioned with regard to varna divisions and this shows that the varna system saw
different stages in its evolution and was not firmly in place from the beginning of the Vedic
culture. Some scholars have shown that the varna mechanism was an elaborate
taxonomical exercise carried out by the brahmanas that favoured themselves at the top of
the social order.

The Vedic Age is a significant civilisational stage in Indian history. It has the beginnings of the religion
and practices that are followed within the sub-continent to this day. Our knowledge about this era
mainly comes from its compositions. The problem of a biased perspective on society and little
corroborative evidence has limited our reconstruction of this time period. It is still relevant in the
characterization of culture in the Indian context and continues to be an active part of daily life in the
current century.