EARLY CIVILISATIONS OF THE NORTHWESTAfghanistan and the Northwest Frontier Provinces of Pakistan, e.g. the
Kubha and Suvastu rivers which are now known as Kabul and Swat rivers.
In this region archaeologists have traced the ‘Gandharan Grave Culture’
with distinctive traits of new burial rites, fire altars, horses and the use of
bronze and copper. But in this case, too, archaeologists are divided on the
issue whether these findings can be ascribed to the early pre-Rigvedic
Aryans or already to groups of Vedic Aryans who were on their way to the
plains of the Indus valley. In this respect the earlier verdict of scholars is
still correct who pointed out that there is as yet no evidence which permits
us to identify separate pre-Vedic and Vedic waves of migration. The Vedic
texts, and in particular the Rigveda, still remain our major source
concerning the early phases of Vedic culture in northwest India. But we
always have to keep in mind that these texts express the priestly world-
view of the Brahmins. A critical analysis of these texts will nevertheless
provide detailed information about the daily life of the Vedic Age.
The Vedas as a mirror of historical experienceThe Vedas are the most important source of information about the Vedic
Aryans and at the same time their greatest cultural achievement. This
treasure of sacred literature encompasses four categories of texts: holy
words (mantra), commentaries on the sacrificial rituals (brahmana),
esoteric philosophical treatises (upanishad) and the instructions for rituals,
etc. (sutra). These categories also reflect the stages of development of this
sacred literature in the various phases of cultural evolution and settlement
of the Indo-Aryans from their first migration into the plains of the
northwest to the reclamation of land in the Ganges valley and the
establishment of their first little kingdoms in the sixth century BC.
The dating of these texts and of the cultures that produced them has
been debated for a long time by Indologists. The famous Indian nationalist,
Bal Gangadhar Tilak, wrote a book on The Arctic Home of the Vedas in
which he maintained that the Vedas could be dated back to the sixth or
fifth millennia BC. He based his conclusions on the interpretation of
references to positions of the stars in the text which could be used by
astronomers for a detailed calculation of the respective date. The German
Indologist Hermann Jacobi independently arrived at a very similar
conclusion and suggested the middle of the fifth millennium as the date of
the Vedas. It is interesting to note the degree of conformity of these dates
with the results of modern archaeology about the origin and age of the
Indo-European language family. But another German Indologist, Max
Müller, who was teaching at Oxford, projected a much later date. He took
the birth of the Buddha around 500 BC as a point of departure and
suggested that the Upanishads, which antedate Buddhist philosophy, must
have been produced around 800 to 600 BC. The earlier Brahmana and