NCERT Class 6 - Our Pasts I • NCERT Class 12 - Themes in Indian History Part I

Early Vedic Period: Society and Polity

The Early Vedic or Rigvedic period, roughly 1500-1000 BCE, is known only from the Rigveda. Society was tribal and pastoral, wealth was counted in cattle, and the chief ruled with the help of tribal assemblies rather than a standing bureaucracy.

Geography

• The Rigvedic people lived in the Sapta Sindhu - the land of seven rivers, covering eastern Afghanistan, Punjab and the fringe of western Uttar Pradesh.
• The Indus (Sindhu) is the most frequently mentioned river; the Saraswati is praised as naditama, the best of rivers.
• The Ganga is mentioned only once and the Yamuna three times, which shows the eastern plains were still outside the core area.
• There were no cities and no writing; settlements were temporary and made of wood and reed.

Political organisation

• The unit was the jana, a tribe, led by a rajan who was a war leader, not a territorial king.
• Assemblies checked his power: sabha (a smaller body of elders), samiti (a larger general assembly), vidatha (the oldest assembly, also for distribution) and gana.
• Key officials were the purohita (priest), senani (army leader) and gramani (head of a village), but there was no regular tax and no standing army.
• Bali was a voluntary offering to the chief, not a compulsory tax.
• The Battle of Ten Kings (Dasarajna) was fought on the Parushni (Ravi), where Sudas of the Bharata tribe defeated a confederacy of ten tribes.

Economy and society

• The economy was mainly pastoral; the cow was the chief measure of wealth, and the word gavishti, literally "search for cows", came to mean war.
• Agriculture existed but was secondary; barley (yava) was the main grain.
• Society was based on kula (family), grama and vish; the family was patriarchal but not rigidly stratified.
• Varna divisions were not yet hereditary and rigid. The Purusha Sukta, which describes four varnas, is in Mandala 10, a later addition to the Rigveda.
• Women attended assemblies, could be educated, and composed hymns - Apala, Ghosha, Lopamudra and Vishwavara are named. Child marriage and sati are absent.

Religion

• Worship was of natural forces through fire sacrifice; there were no temples and no idol worship.
• Indra is the most invoked god, called Purandara, the breaker of forts, with about 250 hymns.
• Agni comes next as the messenger between gods and humans; Varuna upholds rita, the cosmic and moral order.
• Other deities: Soma (the whole of Mandala 9), Surya, Usha, Vayu, Yama and Aditi.
• Sacrifices at this stage were simple, without elaborate ritual or heavy priestly fees.