essay on pottery on Vedic period in english
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The Vedic period, or Vedic age (c. 1500 – c. 500 BCE), is the period in the history of the northwestern Indian subcontinent between the end of the urban Indus Valley Civilisation and a second urbanisation in the central Gangetic Plain which began in c. 600 BCE. It gets its name from the Vedas, which are liturgical texts containing details of life during this period that have been interpreted to be historical[1] and constitute the primary sources for understanding the period.
The Vedas were composed and orally transmitted with precision by speakers of an Old Indo-Aryan language who had migrated into the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent early in this period. The associated Vedic culture was tribal and pastoral until c. 1200 or 1100 BCE and centred in the Punjab. It then spread eastward to the western Ganges Plain, becoming more agricultural and settled, while the central Ganges Plain was dominated by a related but non-Vedic Indo-Aryan culture. The Vedic period saw the emergence of a hierarchy of social classes and the coalescence of peoples into Janapada (monarchical state-level polities).[2][3] The end of the Vedic period witnessed the rise of Mahajanapada (large, urbanised states) as well as śramaṇa movements (including Jainism and Buddhism) which challenged the Vedic orthodoxy of the Kuru Kingdom.[4]
The Vedic society was patriarchal and patrilineal, and early Vedic Aryans were organised into tribes rather than kingdoms. Economy in the Vedic period was sustained by a combination of pastoralism and agriculture. Vedic religion developed into Brahmanical orthodoxy, and around the beginning of the Common Era, the Vedic tradition formed one of the main constituents of the so-called "Hindu synthesis".[5]
Archaeological cultures identified with phases of Vedic material culture include the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture, the Gandhara grave culture, the Black and red ware culture and the Painted Grey Ware culture.[6]