EARLY CIVILISATIONS OF THE NORTHWESTmentioned although the early Vedic hymns are otherwise silent about Vedic
fortifications. At the most there were some fortified shelters for the cows
(gomati-pur) because cattle was the most precious property of the Aryans.
The antecedents of King Sudasa who is so often mentioned in these
hymns are not quite clear. His father’s name is given as Divodasa. Another
king called Trasadasyu also appears in these hymns and is praised as a great
patron of Vedic poets and as a devotee of Indra. The appearance of the terms
dasa and dasyu in these names raises the question whether some tribes of
this people had already joined the Vedic Aryans at that time and may have
even served as their guides in the course of their immigration. Recently the
Finnish Indologist and historian A.Parpola proposed the interesting theory
that the Dasas originally belonged to the early pre-Vedic Aryans of southern
Central Asia. Their names seem to indicate a relationship with Old Iranian
in which an etymologically identical ethnic name daha is known and dahyu
has the meaning of ‘land’. The Vedic Aryans may have encountered these
daha/dasa people already in Margiana and Bactria and later on in
northwestern India where some of them had already mixed with the
indigenous population. This assumption would help to explain the otherwise
contradictory evidence that, on the one hand, these Dasas are described in
the Rigveda in disdainful words and, on the other hand, some of their chiefs,
like the famous Sudasa, are highly praised as allies of the Vedic Aryans
whose language they seem to have understood.
The world-view of the migrant Vedic people was simplistic—a
characteristic of early cultures. Land and food seem to have been abundant
in the early period, because the texts do not mention any problems of
scarcity unlike those of later periods when these problems did emerge.
With the help of Indra one could always take away from the Dasyus
whatever was in short supply. Only the bards were worried about patrons
and competitors:
Bring us the wealth that men require, a manly master of a house,
free-handed with the liberal meed.
(VI, 53)Let none of thy worshippers delay thee far away from us. Even
from far away come thou unto our feast, or listen if already here.
For here, like flies on honey, these who pray to thee sit by the
juice that they have poured.
Wealth-craving singers have on Indra set their hope, as men set
foot upon a car.
(VII, 32)The early texts also do not reflect any preoccupation with the meaning of
life. It was enough to praise Indra’s incessant quest for victory and his