In addition to the archaeologicallegacy discussed above, there remains from this period the earliest literary record of Indianculture, theVedas. Composed inarchaic, orVedic, Sanskrit, generally dated between 1500 and 800bce, and transmitted orally, the Vedascomprise four major texts—the Rig-, the Sama-, the Yajur-, and the Atharvaveda. Of these, theRigveda is believed to be the earliest. The texts consist of hymns, charms, spells, and ritual observations current among the Indo-European-speaking people known asAryans (from Sanskritarya, “noble”), who presumably entered India from the Iranian regions.

Theories concerning the origins of the Aryans, whose language is also calledAryan, relate to the question of what has been called the Indo-European homeland. In the 17th and 18th centuriesce, European scholars who first studiedSanskrit were struck by the similarity in itssyntax and vocabulary to Greek and Latin. This resulted in the theory that there had been a common ancestry for these and other related languages, which came to be called theIndo-European group oflanguages. This in turn resulted in the notion thatIndo-European-speaking peoples had a common homeland from which they migrated to various parts ofAsia andEurope. The theory stirred intense speculation, which continues to the present day, regarding the original homeland and the period or periods of the dispersal from it. The study of Vedic India is still beset by “the Aryan problem,” which often clouds the genuine search for historical insight into this period.

That there was amigration of Indo-European speakers, possibly in waves, dating from the 2nd millenniumbce, is clear from archaeological and epigraphic evidence in western Asia. Mesopotamia witnessed the arrival about 1760bce of the Kassites, who introduced the horse and the chariot and bore Indo-European names. A treaty from about 1400bce between the Hittites, who had arrived in Anatolia about the beginning of the 2nd millenniumbce, and the Mitanni empireinvoked several deities—Indara, Uruvna, Mitira, and the Nasatyas (names that occur in the Rigveda as Indra, Varuna, Mitra, and the Ashvins). An inscription at Bogazköy in Anatolia of about the same date contains Indo-European technical terms pertaining to the training of horses, which suggests cultural origins inCentral Asia or the southern Russian steppes. Clay tablets dating to about 1400bce, written atTell el-Amarna (in Upper Egypt) in Akkadian cuneiform, mention names of princes that are also Indo-European.

Nearer India, theIranian plateau was subject to a similar migration. Comparison of Iranian Aryan literature with the Vedas reveals striking correspondences. Possibly a branch of the Iranian Aryansmigrated to northern India and settled in the SaptaSindhu region, extending from theKābul River in the north to theSarasvati and upper Ganges–Yamuna Doab in the south. The Sarasvati, the sacred river at the time, is thought to have dried up during the later Vedic period. Conceived as a goddess (seeSarasvati), it was personified in laterHinduism as the inventor of spoken and written Sanskrit and the consort of Brahma, promulgator of the Vedas. It was in the Sapta Sindhu region that the majority of the hymns of the Rigveda were composed.

TheRigveda is divided into 10mandalas (books), of which the 10th is believed to be somewhat later than the others. Eachmandala consists of a number of hymns, and mostmandalas are ascribed to priestly families. The texts include invocations to the gods, ritual hymns, battle hymns, and narrativedialogues. The 9thmandala is a collection of all the hymns dedicated tosoma, the unidentified hallucinogenic juice that was drunk on ritual occasions.

Few events of political importance are related in the hymns. Perhaps the most impressive is a description of the battle of the 10 chiefs or kings: whenSudas, the king of the preeminentBharatas of southern Punjab, replaced his priestVishvamitra with Vasishtha, Vishvamitra organized a confederacy of 10 tribes, including the Puru, Yadu, Turvashas, Anu, and Druhyu, which went to war against Sudas. The Bharatas survived and continued to play an important role in historical tradition. In the Rigveda the head of aclan is called theraja; this term commonly has been translated as “king,” but more recent scholarship has suggested “chief” as more appropriate in this earlycontext. If such a distinction is recognized, the entire corpus of Vedic literature can be interpreted as recording the gradual evolution of the concept of kingship from earlier clan organization. Among the clans there is little distinction between Aryan and non-Aryan, but the hymns refer to a people, called thedasyus, who are said to have had an alien language and a dark complexion and to worship strange gods. Somedasyus were rich in cattle and lived in fortified places (puras) that were often attacked by the god Indra. In addition to thedasyus, there were the wealthy Panis, who were hostile and stole cattle.

The early Vedic was the period of transition from nomadic pastoralism to settledvillagecommunities intermixing pastoral and agrarian economies.Cattle were initially the dominant commodity, as indicated by the use of the wordsgotra (“cowpen”) to signify the endogamous kinship group andgavishti (“searching for cows”) to denote war. A patriarchal extendedfamily structure gave rise to the practice ofniyoga (levirate), which permitted a widow to marry her husband’s brother. Acommunity of familiesconstituted agrama. The termvish is generally interpreted to mean “clan.” Clan assemblies appear to have been frequent in the early stages. Various categories of assemblies are mentioned, such asvidatha,samiti, andsabha, although the precise distinctions between these categories are not clear. The clan also gathered for the yajna, the Vedic sacrifice conducted by the priest, whose ritual actions ensured prosperity and imbued the chief with valour. The chief was primarily a war leader with responsibility for protecting the clan, for which function he received abali (“tribute”). Punishment was exacted according to a principle resembling thewergild of ancientGermanic law, whereby the social rank of a wronged or slain man determined the compensation due him or his survivors.

Later Vedic period (c. 800–c. 500bce)

The principal literary sources from this period are the Sama-, the Yajur-, and the Atharvaveda (mainly ritual texts), the Brahmanas (manuals on ritual), and theUpanishads (Upanisads) and Aranyakas (collections of philosophical andmetaphysical discourses). Associated with the corpus are thesutra texts, largely explanatory aids to the other works,comprising manuals on sacrifices and ceremonies, domestic observances, and social and legal relations. Because the texts were continually revised, they cannot be dated accurately to the early period. The Dharma-sutra texts of this period became the nuclei of the socio-legal Dharma-shastras of later centuries.

Historians formerly assigned the two major Indian epics, theMahabharata and theRamayana, to this period, but subsequent scholarship has rendered these dates less certain. Both works are mixtures of the historical and the legendary, both were rewritten and edited, both suffered from frequent interpolations even as late as the early centuriesce, and both were laterconverted intosacred literature with the deification of their heroes. Consequently, important as they are to the literary and religious tradition, they are not easily identified with a historical period. The central event of theMahabharata, whose geographic setting is the upper Ganges–Yamuna Doab and adjoining areas, is a war between two groups of cousins—the Kauravas and the Pandavas. Though the traditional date for the war is about 3102bce, most historians would prefer a later one. The events of theRamayana relate to the middle Ganges valley and central India, with later interpolations extending the area southward.

The geographic focus of the later Vedic corpus moves from the Sapta Sindhu region into theGanges–Yamuna Doab and the territories on its fringe. The areas within this land of thearyas, called Aryavarta, were named for the ruling clans, and the areaencompassed within Aryavarta gradually expanded eastward. By the end of the period, clan identity had changed gradually to territorial identity, and the areas of settlement came eventually to form states. The people beyond the Aryavarta were termed themlecchas (ormlechchhas), the impure barbarians unfamiliar with the speech and customs of thearyas.

The literature is replete with the names of clans. The most powerful among them, commanding the greatest respect, was theKuru-Pancala, which incorporated the two families of Kuru and Puru (and the earlier Bharatas) and of which the Pancala was a confederation of lesser-known tribes. They occupied the upper Ganges–Yamuna Doab and theKurukshetra region. In the north the Kamboja, Gandhara, and Madra groups predominated. In the middle Ganges valley the neighbours and rivals of the Kuru-Pancalas were theKashi,Koshala, and Videha, who worked in close cooperation with each other. TheMagadha, Anga, and Vanga peoples in the lower Ganges valley and delta were (in that period) still outside the Aryan pale and regarded asmlecchas. Magadha (Patna andGaya districts of Bihar) is also associated with thevratya people, who occupied anambiguous position between thearyas andmlecchas. Othermleccha tribes frequently mentioned include the Satvants of theChambal River valley and, in the Vindhyan and northernDeccan region, theAndhra, Vidarbha, Nishadha, Pulinda, and Shabara. The location of all these tribes is of considerable historical interest, because they gave their names to enduring geographic regions.

By the 5th centurybce, clan identity had changed to territorial identity, and the areas of settlement changed from chiefdoms to kingdoms in some cases. The state was emerging as a new feature. Assemblies such as thesabha andparishad continued as political institutions into later periods. The larger assemblies declined.Rudimentary notions of taxation were the genesis of administration, as were theratnins (“jewels”), consisting of representatives of various professions advising the chief. A major transformation occurred in the notion ofkingship, which ceased to be merely an office of a war leader; territorial identity provided it with power and status, symbolized by a series of lengthy and elaborate ceremonies—theabhishekha, generally followed by major sacrificial rituals, such as theashvamedha. This ceremony was a famous horse sacrifice, in which a specially selected horse was permitted to wander at will, tracked by a body of soldiers; the area through which the horse wandered unchallenged was claimed by the chief or king conducting the sacrifice. Thus, theoretically at least, only those with considerable power could perform this sacrifice. Such major sacrificial rituals involved a large amount of wealth and ahierarchy of priests. The ceremonies lasted many days and involved areciprocal economy ofgift exchange between the chief and the priest, by which the latter received wealth in kind and the former established status, prosperity, and proximity to the gods.

Theconspicuous display andconsumption of these ceremonies have elicited comparison with the potlatch of theKwakiutl and related North Americanindigenous peoples. The assumption of such sacrifices was that the clan had settled in a particular area, marking the end of nomadism. This led eventually to the claim of ownership by kings of the wastelands, although a ruler’s right to collect taxes was viewed not as a consequence of his ownership of wasteland but as his wage for protecting society. The new trends emphasized the importance of the priests and thearistocracy (Brahmans andKshatriyas), who were the mainstay of kingship. The introduction, through royal sacrifices, of notions of divinity in kingship further strengthened the role of the priests. This was also the period in which kingship became hereditary.

The technology of iron, orkrishna ayas (“dark metal”), as it was apparently called in later Vedic literature, and the migration into the Ganges valley helped in stabilizing agriculture and settlements. Some of these settlements along the rivers evolved into towns, essentially as administrative and craft centers. By the mid-1st millenniumbce the second urbanization—this time in the Ganges valley—was under way.

The development with the most far-reachingconsequences for Indian culture is the structure of society that has come to be called caste. A hymn in theRigveda contains a description of the primeval sacrifice and refers to the emergence of four groups from the body of the god Prajapati—the Brahmans (Brāhmaṇas), Kshatriyas (Kṣatriyas), Vaishyas (Vaiśyas), and Sudras (Śūdras). This is clearly a mythologized attempt to describe the origin of the fourvarnas, which came to be regarded as the four major classes in Indian society.

Theetymology of each is of interest: Brahman is one who possesses magical or divine knowledge (brahman); Kshatriya is endowed with power orsovereignty (kṣatra); and Vaishya, derived fromviś (vish, “settlement”), is a person settled on the land or a member of the clan. Thederivation of the term Sudra, however, denoting a member of the group born to serve the upper threevarnas, is not clear, which may suggest that it is a non-Aryan word. In addition tovarna there are references tojati (birth), which gradually came to acquire a close association with caste and appears to mean the endogamous kinship group.

In the course of time theBrahmans became the preeminent priestly group, the intermediaries with the gods at the sacrificial rituals, and the recipients of large donations for priestly functions; in the process they acquired a number of privileges, such asexemption from taxes and inviolability. TheKshatriyas, who were to become the landowning families, assumed the role of military leaders and of the natural aristocracy having connections with royalty. TheVaishyas were more subservient, and, although their status was not as inferior as that of theSudras, they appear to have been crucial to the economy. The traditional view of the Sudras is that they were non-Aryan cultivators who came under the domination of the Aryans and in many cases were enslaved and therefore had to serve the upper three groups. But not all references to the Sudras are to slaves. Sometimes wealthy Sudras are mentioned, and in later centuries some of them even became kings.

The traditional view thatvarna reflects the organization of Indian society has recently been questioned; it has been suggested that the rules ofvarna conform to anormative or presumptive model, and that the concept ofjati is more central to caste functioning. This view is strengthened by the fact that the non-Brahmanical literature of later periods does not always conform to the picture of caste society depicted in the Dharma-shastras.