A History of India, Third Edition

EARLY CIVILISATIONS OF THE NORTHWEST

or walls. Many Vedic hymns praise the chief god of the Aryans, Indra, as a
breaker of forts (purandara):

Armed with his bolt and trusting in his prowess he wandered

shattering the forts of Dasas.

Cast thy dart, knowing, Thunderer, at the Dasyu; increase the

Arya’s might and glory, Indra...

See this abundant wealth that he possesses, and put your trust in

Indra’s hero vigour.

He found the cattle and he found the horses, he found the plants,

the forests and the waters.

(I, 104)^1

A prominent enemy of the Vedic Aryans seems to have been the Dasa
Shambara, whom Indra ‘hurled down from a mountain’ (VI, 26), whose
‘ninety-nine walls he smashed’ (VI, 47). In another hymn, a ‘hundred stone
forts’ (IV, 30) are said to have belonged to Shambara. Agni, the fire god of the
Aryans and a great patron of the Brahmins who invited him to the sacrificial
fire, was also of as much help to them as the mighty Indra. When it is said
that Agni weakened ‘the walls with his weapons’ (VII, 6), this can only mean
that wooden fortifications were consumed by fire, with which Agni was
identified. The Vedic tribe of the Purus seems to have been particularly
successful in this kind of warfare, since one hymn (VII, 5) says:

For fear of thee forth fled the dark-hued races, scattered abroad,

deserting their possessions, when glowing. O Vaisvanara, for Puru,

thou, Agni, didst light up and rend their castles...

Thou drivest Dasyus from their home, O Agni, and broughtest

forth broad light to light the Arya.

But the Vedic Aryans did not only fight the Dasyus, they also fought
among themselves because each of their tribes had to defend itself against
other tribes—Aryans who came at a later stage and coveted the land which
the others had taken away from the Dasyus. On the banks of the river
Hariyupiya near the border of Afghanistan a battle was fought between
two tribes in which 130 knights in armour were killed. Also, two hymns of
the Rigveda (VII, 18 and 33) report a ‘Battle of Ten Kings’. This seems to
have been a fight between two Vedic tribal confederations. King Sudasa,
who belonged to the famous Bharatas, was victorious with the help of
Indra, after his enemies had tried in vain to defeat him by opening
embankments and causing an inundation.
It is interesting that in this context seven forts of Sudasa’s enemies are