EXPLAIN"EARLY VEDIC " period
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Early Vedic period
In addition to the archaeological legacy discussed above, there remains from this period the earliest literary record of Indian culture, the Vedas. Composed in archaic, or Vedic, Sanskrit, generally dated between 1500 and 800 BCE, and transmitted orally, the Vedas comprise four major texts—the Rig-, the Sama-, the Yajur-, and the Atharvaveda. Of these, the Rigveda is believed to be the earliest. The texts consist of hymns, charms, spells, and ritual observations current among the Indo-European-speaking people known as Aryans (from Sanskrit arya, “noble”), who presumably entered India from the Iranian regions.
Theories concerning the origins of the Aryans, whose language is also called Aryan, relate to the question of what has been called the Indo-European homeland. In the 17th and 18th centuries CE, European scholars who first studied Sanskrit were struck by the similarity in its syntax and vocabulary to Greek and Latin. This resulted in the theory that there had been a common ancestry for these and other related languages, which came to be called the Indo-European group of languages. This in turn resulted in the notion that Indo-European-speaking peoples had a common homeland from which they migrated to various parts of Asia and Europe. The theory stirred intense speculation, which continues to the present day, regarding the original homeland and the period or periods of the dispersal from it. The study of Vedic India is still beset by “the Aryan problem,” which often clouds the genuine search for historical insight into this period.
That there was a migration of Indo-European speakers, possibly in waves, dating from the 2nd millennium BCE, is clear from archaeological and epigraphic evidence in western Asia. Mesopotamia witnessed the arrival about 1760 BCE of the Kassites, who introduced the horse and the chariot and bore Indo-European names. A treaty from about 1400 BCE between the Hittites, who had arrived in Anatolia about the beginning of the 2nd millennium BCE, and the Mitanni empire invoked several deities—Indara, Uruvna, Mitira, and the Nasatyas (names that occur in the Rigveda as Indra, Varuna, Mitra, and the Ashvins). An inscription at Bogazköy in Anatolia of about the same date contains Indo-European technical terms pertaining to the training of horses, which suggests cultural origins in Central Asia or the southern Russian steppes. Clay tablets dating to about 1400 BCE, written at Tell el-Amarna (in Upper Egypt) in Akkadian cuneiform, mention names of princes that are also Indo-European.
Early Vedic period (c. 1500 – c. 1200 BCE) · The Vedic period, or Vedic age ( c. 1500 – c. 500 BCE), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedas were composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the urban Indus Valley Civilisation and a second urbanisation which began in the central Indo- ...
Period: Bronze Age India
Geographical range: Indian subcontinent
Followed by: Late Vedic period, Kuru Kingdom, Panchala, Videha
Dates: c. 1500 – c. 1100 BCE
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Historical Vedic religion
The historical Vedic religion (also known as Vedism or (anachronistically) ancient Hinduism[a]), and subsequent Brahmanism, refers to the religious ideas and practices among some of the Indo-Aryan peoples of the western Ganges plain of ancient India during the Vedic period (1500 BC—500 BC).[3][4][5][6] These ideas and practices are found in the Vedic texts.
The Vedic religion developed during the early Vedic period (1500-1100 BCE), but has roots in the Eurasian steppe Sintashta culture (2200-1800 BCE) and the subsequent Central Asian Andronovo culture (2000-900 BCE), and possibly also the Indus Valley Civilisation (2600-1900 BCE).[7] It was a composite of the religion of the Central Asian Indo-Aryans, itself "a syncretic mixture of old Central Asian and new Indo-European elements",[8] which borrowed "distinctive religious beliefs and practices"[9] from the Bactria–Margiana culture;[9] and the remnants of the Harappan culture of the Indus Valley.[10]
During the late Vedic period (1100-500 BCE) Brahmanism, also called Brahminism, developed out of the Vedic religion, an ideology of the Kuru-Pancala realm which expanded into a wider realm after the demish of the Kuru-Pancala realm. Brahmanism was one of the major influences that shaped contemporary Hinduism, when it was synthesized with the non-Vedic Indo-Aryan religious heritage of the eastern Ganges plain (which also gave rise to Buddhism and Jainism), and with local religious traditions.
Specific rituals and sacrifices of the Vedic religion include, among others: the Soma rituals; Fire rituals involving oblations (havir); and the Ashvamedha (horse sacrifice) The Hindu rites of cremation are seen since the Rigvedic period. Deities are different from Hinduism, and include Indra, Agni and Varuna. Important ethical concepts are satya