EARLY CIVILISATIONS OF THE NORTHWESTMantra texts of the Vedas would then have been produced around 1000 to
800 and 1200 to 1000 BC respectively. Max Müller’s chronology of the
Vedic literature is still more or less accepted by Indologists, although the
date of the Rigveda is extended from 1300 to 1000 BC.
The texts of the Vedas were believed to have originated by divine
inspiration and, therefore, they were transmitted orally from one
generation of Brahmin priests to another in a most faithful and accurate
manner. These well-preserved ancient texts are thus a fairly reliable source
of the history of the Vedic period. This is particularly true of the Mantra
texts which are regarded in the West as the Vedas as such, whereas in India
the Brahmanas, Upanishads and Sutras are also considered to be integral
parts of the Vedas. The Mantra texts consist of four collections (samhita):
Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda. The Rigveda is thought
to be the most ancient and most sacred text. It is also the best source of
information on the daily life of the Vedic Aryans, their struggles and
aspirations, their religious and philosophical ideas.
The Rigveda contains 1,028 hymns with, altogether, 10,600 verses
which are collected in ten books or cycles of songs (mandala). Books II–VII
are considered to be the most ancient ones; they are also called ‘family
books’ because they were produced by certain families of sages. Books I
and X were composed at a later stage. Book X contains a great deal of
philosophical reflection as well as evidence of the caste system which is
missing in the earlier books. The early hymns contain older traditions of
the migration period but the main corpus was composed when the Vedic
culture was still confined to northwestern India and in the Panjab. Later
hymns which had their origin probably in the Brahmana period of the first
centuries of the first millennium BC reflect an advanced stage of
socioeconomic development in the Ganga-Yamuna Doab.
The victories of the Vedic people over the indigenous population of
northwestern India must have been due to their fast two-wheeled chariots,
especially helpful in this dry and flat region, which were also used by other
conquerors in Western Asia. The wheels of these chariots were so valuable
that the chariots were sometimes transported on bullock carts in order to
keep them in good condition for their strategic use on the battlefields. In
spite of their strategic superiority the Vedic people did not sweep across the
Indian plains in a quick campaign of universal conquest. They extended
their area of settlement only very slowly. This may have been due to
environmental conditions as well as to the resistance of the indigenous
people. Moreover, the Vedic Aryans were not the disciplined army of one
great conqueror. They consisted of several tribes which frequently fought
each other. But the dark-skinned indigenous people who are referred to as
Dasas or Dasyus in the Vedic texts were depicted as the ubiquitous foes of
the Aryans. They defended themselves in fortified places (purah, a word
which later referred to a town). These places were surrounded by palisades