Made by-Jashn Ohri

Class-VI A
Roll no-12

Vedic Period
 Early Vedic Period
• The Vedic period, or Vedic age (1500-500 BCE), is the period in the late
Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic
literature, including the Vedas (1300-900 BCE), was composed in the
northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the Urban Indus Valley
Civilisation and a second urbanisation which began in the central Indo-
Gangetic Plain c. 600 BCE.
 Early Vedas/Vedic Literature
• The Vedas are liturgical texts which formed the basis of the influential Brahmanical ideology,
which developed in the Kuru Kingdom, a tribal union of several Indo-Aryan tribes. The Vedas
contain details of life during this period that have been interpreted to be historical[1][note 1]
and constitute the primary sources for understanding the period. These documents, alongside
the corresponding archaeological record, allow for the evolution of the Indo-Aryan and Vedic
culture to be traced and inferred. The Vedas were composed and orally transmitted with
precision by speakers of an Old Indo-Aryan language who had migrated into the northwestern
regions of the Indian subcontinent early in this period. The Vedic society was patriarchal and
patrilineal.[note 2] Early Indo-Aryans were a Late Bronze Age society centred in the Punjab,
organised into tribes rather than kingdoms, and primarily sustained by a pastoral way of life.
Geographical range Indian subcontinent
Period Bronze Age India
Dates c. 1500 – c. 1100 BCE
Preceded by Indus Valley Civilisation Cemetery H culture
Ochre Coloured Pottery culture
Followed by Late Vedic period, Kuru Kingdon, Panchala,
Videha
 Late Vedic Period

• The Vedic period saw the emergence of a hierarchy of social classes that
would remain influential. Vedic religion developed into Brahmanical
orthodoxy, and around the beginning of the Common Era, the Vedic
tradition formed one of the main constituents of "Hindu synthesis".
 Pottery
• Archaeological cultures identified with phases of Indo-Aryan material
culture include the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture, the Gandhara grave
culture, the black and red ware culture and the Painted Grey Ware culture.
 History
• The early Vedic age is historically dated to the second half of the second millennium
BCE. Historically, after the collapse of the Indus Valley Civilisation, which occurred
around 1900 BCE, groups of Indo-Aryan peoples migrated into north-western India
and started to inhabit the northern Indus Valley. The Indo-Aryans represented a sub-
group that diverged from other Indo-Iranian tribes at the Andronovo horizon before
the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE, The Indo-Iranians originated in the Sintashta
culture, from which arose the subsequent Andronovo horizon. The Indo-Aryans
migrated through the adjacent Bactria-Margiana area (present-day northern
Afghanistan) to northwest India, followed by the rise of the Iranian Yaz culture at c.
1500 BCE, and the Iranian migrations into Iran at c. 800 BCE.