India: The Aryan Settlement and the Vedic Age

The Aryan Settlement and the Vedic Age

About 1500 BC, India was invaded by Indo European people. These people came from area between the Black Sea and Caspian Sea. Between 2500 and 2000 BC, many Indo Europeans migrated all over Eurasia. Some went to Europe and became the Romans and the Greeks, some settled in Turkey and became the Hittites. Others migrated south east instead. Some of them stopped in Iran, while others continued southeast to Pakistan and India. The slow migration did not arrive in northern India until about 1500 BC. In India the Indo Europeans are called the Aryans. The Aryans, a nomadic people from Central Asia, settled in the upper reaches of the Indus, Yamuna and Gangetic plains. Some people have disputed the arrival of the Indo Europeans. Some may say it did not happen. But there are written records of the language that these people brought with them to India, Sanskrit. We can read Sanskrit and we can easily see that many words in Sanskrit are basically the same as in other Indo European languages. In addition recent genetic evidence supports the arrival of the Indo Europeans. In addition to their language the Aryans also brought their gods with them to India. These Gods form the basis of the Vedas. The Aryans are important to Indian history because they originated the earliest form of the sacred Vedas ( orally transmitted texts of hymns and devotions to gods, manuals of sacrifice for their worship, and philosophical speculation.

The Aryans first settled along the Indus River, in the same place where the Harappa people had lived. They settled down and mixed with the local Indian people. They lived their from about 1500 to 800 BC. About 800 BC the Aryans learned how to use iron for weapons and tools. They probably learned to work iron from the people of West Asia, the Assyrians, who had learned it from the Indo European Hittites. Once they learned how to use their new weapons to conquer more of India and moved to the south and east into the Ganges river valley. They settled their not long after 800 BC. After the Aryans moved into the Ganges Valley about 800 BC, they were further from West Asia and has less contact with West Asian people. They began to mix more with the Indian people and the Indian gods became mixed with the Aryan gods. The Aryan conquest of the Ganges is remembered in the Mahabharata, first told about this time. But still the Aryans did not control all India. Southern India was ruled by a bunch of independent kings who did not have to what the Aryans wanted. Stories of fights between the Aryans and southerners are told in the Ramayana.

The Vedas, which are considered the core of Hinduism, provide much information about the Aryans. The major gods of the Vedic peoples remain in the pantheon of present-day Hindus; the core rituals surrounding birth, marriage, and death retain their Vedic form. The Vedas also contain the seeds of great epic literature and philosophical traditions in India. Some examples are the Mahabharata and Ramayana as mentioned above. Another example is the Upanishads, philosophical treatises that were composed between the 8th and 5th century.

As the Aryans slowly settled into agriculture and moved southeast through the Gangetic Plain, they relinquished their seminomadic style of living and changed their social and political structures. Instead of a warrior leading a tribe, with a tribal assembly as a check on his power, an Aryan chieftain ruled over territory, with its society divided into hereditary groups. This structure became the beginning of the caste system, which has survived in India until the present day. The four castes that emerged from this era were the Brahmans (priests), the Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), the Vaisyas (merchants, farmers, and traders), and the Sudras (artisans, laborers, and servants).

In the 500’s BC, part of north western India (modern Pakistan) was conquered by the Persians under their kings Cyrus and Darius. The Persians were also Indo Europeans, but they had left their homeland later and settled in modern Iran. But the Persians never really controlled India much, they made the Indians pay tribute gold to Persia. but they did not really tell them what to do. Meanwhile, the Aryans continued to rule north eastern India in the 400’s BC.