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Religion and Spirituality In Vedic Age

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Aryans worshipped the forces of nature. these forces were divided into two classes. Benevolent forces of nature were called Devas and malevolent forces Asuras. They worshipped the Devas-benevolent forces of nature or shining Gods.

The Sun, Sky, Rain, Air and Fire were all defined and worshipped. Whenever they required sun or rain or fire, they chanted certain hymns especially meant for that particular natural force and invoked its help.

The religious beliefs were extension of primitive faiths prevalent among the Aryans before their arrival in India. Read more

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Tags: Early Vedic Age, ghee milk and rice, indra, jal agni vayu prithvi akash, religion, religious life, rudra, saraswati, worship

Early Vedic Age-Political Organization

In early vedic age, monarchy was the prevalent form of government. The institution of monarchy was justified on grounds of divine sanction.

As a rule, kingship was hereditary. But there are instances when the king owed his position to the choice of the people. The king led the army in battles, administered justice and maintained the priestly classes.

The main source of income was war booties. Also, the voluntary gifts by the people were source of income.

The Senani, the Gramini and the Purohit were important members of the royal entourage.

While the Senani looked after the army, Gramini served as the village headman and Purohit was concerned with religious administrative matters. Read more

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Tags: Aryans, Early Vedic Age, Education, Political Organisation, purohit, rigvedic, sabha, samiti, senani, tribal chief, Voluntary

The Expansion of Early Vedic Age

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. Read more

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Economic Life in Early Vedic Age

The life of the Rigvedic Aryans was distinctly rural. The village with its pastoral and agricultural land formed the unit of the Rigvedic economic life.

The cattle occupied a position of great importance. Values of commodities or lands were determined in terms of cattle.

Agriculture was the main occupation. Ploughing of land and reaping of java (barley) was done and there was also to a crude system of irrigation.

Hunting too was one of the approved, though subsidiary means of livelihood. Read more

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Social Life of Early Vedic Age

The family, called Griha or Kula, was the pivot of the Rigvedic society. As the semi nomad Aryans settled in the North-West and the Punjab Valley they developed a healthy family life in which marriage was considered sacred and indissoluble.

Monogamy was the normal practice though instances of polygamy were not unknown. Polyandry, known in later days, does not appear to have come into vogue in Rigvedic times. Child marriage was unknown and the girls enjoyed considerable freedom in the choice of their consorts. Read more

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Where Did Aryans Come From?

There are, several schools of thought regarding the original home of the Aryans.

As per Prof. Macdonell, their original home was in South-East of Europe. A.C. Dass says that their original home was India. Others say that they first lived in central Asia, whereas another theory believes them to have come form Arctic regions.

According to Prof. Max Muller, a great German scholar, there was a time when the ancestors of the Indians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Germans and the Celts, lived at one place. The study of the languages of these people clearly shows that at one time these different nations must have had one common habitat.

Words like The ‘Pita’ and ‘Mata’ of the Indian are essentially the same as the Persian ‘Pidar’ and ‘Madar’ the Latin ‘Pater’ and ‘Mater’, and the English ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’. These are words of everyday use in families which could not have been adopted unless, at some distant time, the ancestors of these people had lived at one common place.

The Aryans, who today occupy European countries, migrated by a route south of the Caspian, through Asia Minor to Greece and Italy; and one of their groups came to India through the north-west passages.

But Shri Bal Ganga Dhar Tilak, the great Maratha scholar and nationalist, in his “Arctic Home in the Vedas” has tried to prove that the original home of the Aryans was the Arctic region.

By a careful and close study of the Rigveda and Zend-Avesta, by comparing the Flora and fauna in these books with those of the area which we today call the Arctic region, he has formulated a theory that our ancestors originally lived in the tract between the North Pole and the Arctic Circle.

Geologists have proved that in pre-historic times there was a congenital climate and perpetual spring in those areas.

The theory of Tilak, therefore, cannot be rejected.

A.C. Dass, a Bengali historian locates the original home of the Aryans in the ancient Sapt-Sandhu or the modern, Punjab. He says that all the plants and animals mentioned in the Rigveda and other ancient books were found in the ancient Punjab, which was called Sapt-Sandhu. The geography of the ancient Punjab was also the same, which the internal study of the Rigveda reveals as to the original habitat of the Aryans.

A.C. Dass sayys

The original cradle of the Aryans was, therefore, Sapt-Sandhu, which included the beautiful valley of Kashmir on the north and Gandhara on the west. Its southern boundary was Rajputana and its easern boundary covered the Gangetic trough.

It was completely cut off from southern India by sea, but it was connected by land with western Asia in the direction of Gandhara and Kabulistan through which waves after waves of Aryan immigrants advanced to the west and to Europe the earliest Aryan tribes had left Sapt-Sandhu having been pushed farthest into Europe by those that followed them at long intervals and in different stages.

But this theory is not convincing.

The theory which is generally accepted these days is that the original home of the Aryan was in south-east Europe. Prof. Macdonell says that the common trees like the oak, the beech and the willow, and the common animals like the horse and the cow with which the ancestors of the Aryans were familiar, could, in those days, be found only in southern Europe.

We cannot say with certainly what the original habitat of the Aryans was, however, it is generally accepted that the ancestors of Persians, Indians, Greeks, Germans and English once lived at one common place.

Though essentially a nomad people, they were acquainted with agriculture. The called themselves “Arya” or “Airya”. The Sanskrit “Arya” in Zend-Avesta means persons living on agriculture or of good family. The Aryans who settled in India are distinguished from the other groups of the Aryans and are called Indo-Aryans.

Note: The Zend Avesta (”Book of the Law”) is the principal Zoroastrian scripture. The Zend Avesta is a collection of prayers, hymns, and other works, and includes the Gathas, or hymns of Zoroaster. The Zend Avesta as seen today was compiled from older oral traditions around the thirteenth century and may have existed in a different formn much earlier. According to legend, the original scriptures were destroyed by Alexander the Great, who is still reviled to this day

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Tags: aryans theories, central asia, father mother, max muller, original home, pidar madar, pita mata, punjab, south east

Aryan Migration To India

The invaders of India called themselves Aryas, a word generally anglicized into Aryans. The name was also used by the ancient Persians, and survives in the word Iran.

Eire, the name of the most westerly land reached by Indo-European peoples in ancient times, is also cognate.

The origin of the Aryans is still an unsettled affair. Much heated controversy has raged around this question. The multiplicity of conflicting theories has created chaos in academic circles. Hence, we have discussed only those theories which seem most reasonable.

About 2000 B.C. the great steppes land which stretches from Poland to Central Asia was inhabited by semi-nomadic barbarians, who were tall, comparatively fair, and mostly long-headed.

They had tamed the horse, which they harnessed to light chariots with spoked wheels, of a much faster and better type than the lumbering ass drawn carts with four solid wheels which were the best means of transport known to contemporary Sumer.

They were whether from pressure of population, dessication of pasture lands, or from both causes, were on the move. They migrated in bands westwards, southwards and eastwards, conquering local populations, and inter-marrying with them to form a ruling class.

They brought with them their patrilinear tribal organization, their worship of sky gods, and their horses and chariots. In most of the lands in which they settled their original language gradually adapted itself to tongues of the conquered peoples.

The marauding tribesmen gradually merged with the older populations of the Middle East, and the ancient civilizations, invigorated by fresh blood and ideas, rose to new heights of material culture.

The Aryan invasion of India was not a single concerned action, but one covering centuries and involving many tribes, perhaps not all of the same race and language. The course of Aryan expansion cannot be plotted, owing to the paucity of material remains.

Evidently the invaders did not take to living in cities, and after the fall of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, the Punjab and Sind became a land of little villages, with buildings of wood and reed the remains of which have long since perished.

For over a thousand years from the fall of Harappa, India is almost an archaeological blank, which at present can only be filled by literary sources.

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Decline of Indus Valley Civilization

The Indus Valley civilization entered its phase of decline in the second millennium B.C. and almost completely disintegrated about 1500 B.C. It is a very strange and striking that a mature and well developed civilization should have declined.

At Mohenjo-daro the archaeologists have noticed progressive deterioration in the construction of buildings nearer the surface. These were positively inferior to the type of buildings found in the lower layers erected earlier.

This indicates a decline in the fortunes of the city-a feature which can be partly explained in terms of annual Indus floods. The second factor accounting for the decline is the deforestation of the area owing to the continuous consumption of timber, over a long period of time, for the purpose of house building.

Mohenjo-daro was thus wearing out its landscape. Over the years it was dying long before the final blow.

That final blow came in the form of external attack by by the nomad Aryans between whom and the people of the Valley ensued a long and fierce struggle. This is further suggested by the group of huddled human skeletons discovered at Mohenjo-daro.

The new and more vigorous force represented by the Aryans won in the end over the age-old and culturally fast deteriorating force of Indus Valley.

There are further speculations that an earthquake might have caused it destruction or the Indus could have changed its course, rendering it unfertile.

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Tags: battle of harappa, Decline, earthquake, harappa, indus valley civilization, Mohenjodaro

Religion In Indus Valley Civilization

There is not enough material available to know about religious practices of people Indus Valley civilization. The people did not worship their gods in temples as no temples have been found.

The most prominent deity is the Mother Goddess or Nature Goddess, whose worship seems to have been common in ancient times in all countries. “Shakti” as popularly known is seen wearing many ornaments. Her head dress looks like a fan.

A seal also portrays a highly conventionalized figure of a three-faced male God, seated Yogi-like, with animals on each side.It has been recognized as the proto-type historic Siva.

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Thethe worship of the phallic emblems, the linga was prevalent.

The most common animals of worship were the bull, the tiger, the goat, the rhinoceros, the crocodile and the snake. Modern worshippers of Shiva and Shakti also honour the bull and tiger.

Out of the birds, the dove was probably the only bird of worship.

The Arynas who succeeded the Indus Valley people dominated the scene gave shape to civilization which is considered predominately Aryan in its feature
Even religious symbols of the later Aryan times may be traced back to pre-Aryan Harappan sources, the striking horned God depicted on the Harappa seals has been accepted as Proto Siva on grounds of similarly with Siva Pashupati worshipped in post-Indus Valley ages.

The cult of the phallic worship and reverence to animals, particularly to the bull, may be cited as further examples of Indus Valley survivals into later times. A complete breach with the Indus culture is thus negated.

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Social and Cultural Life of Indus Valley Civilisation

The Indus Valley people seem to have superseded stone as material for household implements and utensils. They were mostly earthenware. Large number of bowls, dishes, cups, saucers, basins, and stone-jars have been discovered. The pottery was generally “wheel-made”, painted and sometimes “glazed”.

The citizens of Indus Valley also found leisure for entertainments. The preferred indoor hobbies to outdoor amusements. Unlike the Indo-Aryans they took less interest in hunting and chariot-racing.

Dance and music were their popular amusements.

Another game which they played resembles a modern chess. The board and pawns of this game resemble very closely the ‘Sent’ game of Egypt. Marble dolls and animalo toys show that the children of Mohenjodaro were well supplied with play things.

There were numerous and varied types of weapons such as axe, spear, dagger, bow, arrow, mace, sling, and sword, made generally of copper or bronze, as well as shield and scale of armour. Among the tools and implements special importance was attached to toothed saws which were unknown in the ancient world. Read more

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Tags: Amusements, Dress and Ornaments, Hair dressing, Indus Valley Civilisation, Knowledge of Writing, Metal and art, Social and Cultureal Life, Weapons

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