The Expansion of Early Vedic Age

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Initial Aryan settlements in India, seem to have been the Punjab and Delhi reigon. Most frequently mentioned rivers are the Sindhu (Indus), the Saraswati (modern Sarsuti), now lost in the Rajasthan deserts, the Drishadvati (Ghaggar) and the five streams of Sutudri (Sutlej), Vipas (Beas), Parushni (Ravi), Asikni (Chenab), and Vitasta (Jhelum).

The geographical knowledge of he early Aryans did not extend beyond the Yumuna.

The early Aryan settlers were engaged in taking possession of the Land of the Seven Rivers (saptasindhava) represented by the Indus and its principal tributaries. This often led to conflicts between various Aryan tribes.

The most important of the tribal wars to which the Rig Veda refers was the battle of Ten Kings (dasarajna). Sudas, was the king of the Bharata tribe settled in the Western Punjab. Vishvamitra was his chief priest, who had led him to victorious campaigns on the Vipas and Shutudri.

Later Sudas dismissed Vishvamitra and appointed Vasishta, who possessed greater knowledge of the priestly lore. Vishvamita, feeling slighted, formed a confederacy of ten tribes, five of whom were important ones and are frequently referred to in the Rig Veda as panchajanah (five tribes).

In the battle that followed on the banks of the Purushni, Sudas was victorious. I

The chief opponents of the Aryans were the indigenous people of non-Aryan origin.A general Aryan hostility towards the people known as Panis.

The Panis were wealthy people who refused to patronize the Vedic priests and perform Vedic rituals, and who stole the cattle of the Aryans.

More hated than the Panis were the Dasas or Dasyus, who may have been survivors of the late Harappan culture.

The Dasas were held in contempt for they were “black-skinned”, “malignant”, and “nonsacrificing” and spoke a language totally different from that of the Aryans. In the Rig Veda the Aryan was-god Indra is often invited to make good use of is thunderbolt and to collect the heads of the enemies and crush them under his wide foot.

The Aryans are depicted as driving furiously into the battle on chariots drawn by horses, neither of which the earlier inhabitants possessed. Owing to their superior military equipment the Aryans emerged victorious in the protracted struggle against the indigenous tribes and in later centuries the term Dasa came to mean a slave.

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