A History of India, Third Edition

EARLY CIVILISATIONS OF THE NORTHWEST

enormous thirst for inebriating soma which must have been a very potent
drink. A poetic vein appears in the hymns of the Rigveda whenever they
are devoted to Ushas, the goddess of the morning dawn:

With changing tints she gleams in double splendour while from the

eastward she displays her body. She travels perfectly the path of

Order, nor fails to reach, as one who knows, the quarters.

As conscious that her limbs are bright with bathing, she stands,

as ‘twere, erect that we may see her.

(V, 80)

The expansion of Aryan settlements

During the period in which the Rigveda attained its final form the Vedic
population extended its settlements from the northwestern mountain
passes through which they had descended all the way into the western part
of the Ganga-Yamuna Doab. The Yamuna is mentioned twice in the earlier
parts of the Rigveda but the Ganga only once in Book X which is supposed
to be the latest book of the Rigveda. The Panjab with the Saraswati river
seems to have been the heartland of Vedic settlement for quite some time.
They held the rivers in high esteem and praised their god for having
bestowed this boon upon them: ‘Thou hast discovered rivers for the tribes
of men’ (VI, 61). Especially the river Saraswati on whose banks the
Harappan city of Kalibangan had once flourished was considered to be
sacred, but its ‘Seven Sisters’ were also praised.
In this land of the rivers the Vedic Aryans obviously made the transition
from a semi-nomadic life to settled agriculture. This transition was
accompanied by constant fights. Many hymns report the quest for better
land or better access to water: ‘When two opposing hosts contend in battle
for seed and offspring, waters, kine or corn-land’ (VI, 25). Stealing cattle
seems to have been a popular pastime in those days, because the term
goshati (getting cattle) was synonymous with warfare. But such fights were
probably not just an expression of an aggressive temperament, they may
have reflected an increasing pressure on the land. The jungles must still
have been impenetrable at that time and this is why the texts mention ‘the
great struggle for water and sun’ (VI, 46) and record a prayer to Indra that
he may grant ‘undivided fallow land’ (VI, 28). After centuries of nomadic
life the Vedic Aryans now began to cultivate fertile but semiarid areas by
means of river irrigation and also started to clear the jungle wherever this
was possible. The Rigveda reports: ‘They made fair fertile fields, they
brought the rivers. Plants spread over the desert, waters filled the hollows’
(IV, 33).
The cultivation of irrigated arid lands must have been easier than the
clearing of dense jungles—a task avoided even by the indigenous people.