There was however beyond that a feeling of
kinship among all the tribes who called themselves Āryan, stimulated no
doubt into distinct expression by their presence in the midst of the dark
aboriginal population.
kinship among all the tribes who called themselves Āryan, stimulated no
doubt into distinct expression by their presence in the midst of the dark
aboriginal population.
Cambridge History of India - v1
The son of Girikshit, Purukutsa, was the contemporary of Sudās,
and one hymn tells in obscure phrases of the distress to which his wife was
reduced by some misfortune, from which she was relieved by the birth of a
son, Trasadasyu. It is not unlikely that the misfortune was the death of
Purukutsa in the battle of the ten kings. The new ruler, as his name indi.
cates, was a terror to the Dasyus or aborigines, and seems not to have
distinguished himself in war with Āryan enemies. We hear of a descendant
Trikshi, and, apparently still later in the line, of another descendant Kuru.
çravaņa, son of Mitrātithi and father of Upamaçravas, whose death is
deplored in a hymn of the tenth book. The name is of importance and
significance, for it suggests that already in the later Rigvedic period the
Pūrus had become closely united with their former rivals, the Bharatas, both
tribes being merged in the Kurus, whose name, famous in the later Samhitās
1 V. inf. , pp. 90. 1, and Chapter X.
*
## p. 75 (#109) #############################################
IV ]
THE DĀSAS OR DASYUS
75
?
and the Brāhmaṇas as the chief bearers of the culture of the Vedic period,
is not directly mentioned in the Rigveda, though it was clearly not unknown.
Other princes of the Pūru line were Tryaruņa, and Trivſishan or Tridhātu ,
and later evidence enables us with fair certainty to connect with the Pūrus
the princely name Ikshvāku, which occurs but once in a doubtful context
in the Rigveda.
Connected with the Kurus were the Krivis, whose name seems to be
but a variant from the same root, and who appear to have been settled near
the Indus and the Chenāb. Possibly we may see the allied tribes of Kurus
and Krivis in the two Vaikarņa tribes, twenty-one of whose clans shared the
defeat of the five tribes by Sudās. If so, like the Pūrus the Bharatas must
have in course of time become mingled with the Kurus and have merged
their identity with them.
Allied or closely connected with the Bharatas was the tribe of the
Sțiñjayas, whom we must probably locate in the neighbourhood of the
Bharatas. One of their princes, Daiva vāta, won a great victory over the
Turvaças with their allies, the Vřichivants, of whom we know nothing more.
Other princes of the line were Sahadeva, his son Somaka, and Prastoka,
and Vītahavya. They were, like the Bharatas under Divodāsa, closely
connected with the Bhāradvāja family of priests.
No other Āryan tribe plays a great figure in the Rigveda. The Chedis,
who in later times dwelt in Bundelkhand to the north of the Vindhya, and
their king Kaçu are mentioned but once in a late dānastuti : the queen
of
the Uçīnaras, later a petty tribe to the north of the Kuru country, is also
once allued to. The generosity of Rinamchaya, king of the Ruçamas, an
unknown people, has preserved his name from extinction. One interpreta-
tion adds to the enemies of Sudās the tribe of the Matsyas ('fishes') who in
later times occupied the lands now known as Alwar, Jaipur, and Bharatpur.
A raid of the Turvaças and Yadus and a conflict on the Sarayul with Arna
and Chitraratha testify to the activity of these clans, which otherwise are
best known through their opposition to Divodāsa and Sudās, and which must
probably have been settled in the south of the Punjab. The family of the
Kanvas seems to have been connected as priests with the Yadus. Connected
with the Turvaças was the Vộichivant Varaçikha, who was defeated by
Abhyāvartin Chāyāmāna, who himself was perhaps a Sțiñjaya prince.
More shadowy still are Nahus, Tugrya, and Vetasu in whom some have
seen tribes : Nahus is probably rather a general term for neighbour, and
the Tugryas and the Vetasus are families rather than tribes.
More important by far, it may be believed, than the intertribal warfare
of the peoples who called themselves Āryan were their contests with the
aborigines, the Dāsas or Dasyus as they are repeatedly called. The same
1 The identification of this river is uncertain; see Vedic Index, vol. II, p. 434.
## p. 76 (#110) #############################################
7€
[CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
terms are applied indifferently to the human enemies of the Aryans and to
the fiends, and no criterion exists by which references to real foes can be
distinguished in every case from allusions to demoniacal powers. The root
meaning of both words is most probably merely 'foe', but in the Rigveda
it has been specialised to refer, at least as a rule, to such buman foes as were
of the aboriginal race. Individual Dāsas were Ilibiça, Dhuni and Chumuri,
Pipru, Varchin, and çambara, though the last at least has been transformed
by the imagination of the singers into demoniac proportions. The only
peoples named which can plausibly be deemed to have been Dāsas are the
Çimyus, who are mentioned among the foes of Sudās in the battle of the ten
kings, and who are elsewhere classed with Dasyus, the Kikatas with their
leader Pramaganda, and perhaps the Ajas, Yakshus, and çigrus. The main
distinction between the Āryan and the Dāsa was clearly that of colour, and
the distinction between the Āryan varņa, 'colour,' and the black colour is
unquestionably one of the main sources of the Indian caste system. The
overthrow of the black skin is one of the most important exploits of the
Vedic Indian. Second only to the colour distinction was the hatred of men
who did not recognise the Aryan gods : the Dāsas are constantly reproached
for their disbelief, their failure to sacrifice, and their impiety. Nor is there
much doubt that they are the phallus worshippers who twice are referred to
with disapproval in the Rigveda, for phallus worship was probably of
prehistoric age in India and by the time of the Mahābhārata it had won its
way
into the orthodox Hindu cult. We learn, disappointingly enough,
little of the characteristics of the Dāsas, but two epithets applied in one
passage to the Dasyus are of importance. The first is mridhravāchah which
has been interpreted to refer to the nature of the aborigines' speech ; but
which, as it elsewhere is applied to Āryan foes like the Pūrus, probably
means no more than ‘of hostile speech. The other epithet, anāsaḥ, is more
important : it doubtless means 'noseless,' and is a clear indication that the
aborigines to which it is applied were of the Dravidian type as we know it
at the present day. With this accords the fact that the Brāhūi speech still
remains as an isolated remnant in Baluchistān of the Dravidian family of
tongues? But though the main notices of the Rigveda are those of conflict
against the Dāsas and the crossing of rivers to win new lands from them,
it is clear that the Āryans made no attempt at wholesale extermination of
the people. Many of the aborigines doubtless took refuge before the Āryan
attacks in the mountains to the north or to the south of the lands occupied
by the invaders, while others were enslaved. This was so normal in the
In the Imp. Gaz. , vol. I, p. 382, it is suggested that the Brāhuis who are there
ethnographically classed as Turko-Irānian show the original type of Dravidian, and
that the modern Dravidian type is physically due to influence by the Mundā speaking
peoples. The Rigvedic evidence does not favour this view. See Chapter II, pp. 37. 8.
1
## p. 77 (#111) #############################################
IV ]
INDIA AND IRĀN
77
case of women that, in the literature of the next period, the term Dāsi
regularly denotes a female slave; but male slaves are often alluded to in the
Rigveda, sometimes in large numbers, and wealth was already in part made
up of ownership of slaves. The metaphorical use is seen in the name of
one of the greatest of Vedic kings, Divodāsa, 'the servant of heaven. '
In the Purushasūkta, or 'Hymn of Purusha,' which belongs to the latest
stratum of the Rigveda, and which in mystic terms describes the creation
of the four castes from a primeval giant, occurs for the first time the term
çūdra, which includes the slaves as a fourth class in the Āryan state. Pro-
bably enough this word, which has no obvious explanation, was originally
the name of some prominent Dāsa tribe conquered by the Āryans.
Of the stage of civilisation attained by the aborigines we learn little or
nothing. They had, it is certain, large herds of cattle, and they could when
attacked take refuge in fortifications called in the Rigveda by the name
pur, which later denotes 'town,' but which may well have then meant no
more than an earthwork strengthened by a pallisade or possibly occasionally
by stone. Stockades of this kind are often made by primitive peoples, and
are so easily constructed that we can understand the repeated references in
the Rigveda to the large numbers of such fortifications which were captured
and destroyed by the Āryan hosts. Some Dāsas, it seems, were able to
establish friendly relations with the Āryans, for a singer celebrates the
generosity of Balbūtha, apparently a Dāsa ; nor is it impossible, as we have
seen, that the five tribes of the Punjab were not above accepting the cooper-
ation of aboriginal tribes in their great attack on Sudās. We must therefore
recognise that in the age of the Rigveda there was going on a steady pro.
cess of amalgamation of the invaders and the aborigines, whether through
the influence of intermarriage with slaves or through friendly and peaceful
relations with powerful Dāsa tribes.
Like the Dāsas and Dasyus in their appearance both as terrestrial and
as celestial foes are the Paņis. The word seems beyond doubt to be con-
nected with the root seen in the Greek pernēmi, and the sense in which it
was used by the poets must have been something like ‘niggard. ' The
demons are niggards because they withhold from the Āryan the water of
the clouds ; the aborigines are niggards because they refuse the gods their
due, perhaps also because they do not surrender their wealth to the Āryan
without a struggle. The term may also be applied to any foe as an oppro-
brious epithet, and there is no passage in the Samhitā which will not yield
an adequate meaning with one or other of these uses. But it has been
deemed by one high authority to reveal to us a closer connexion of India
and Irān than has yet suggested itself : in the Dāsas Hillebrandt sees the
Dahae, in the Paņis the Parnians, and he locates the struggles of Divodāsa
1 Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologie, vol. I, pp. 94 sq.
## p. 78 (#112) #############################################
78
[ ch.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
against them in Arachosia. Support for this view he finds in the record of
Divodāsa's conflicts with Bțisaya and the Pārāvatas, with whose names he
compares that of the Satrap Barsentes and the people Paruetae of Gedrosia
or Aria. Similarly he suggests that the Sțiñjaya people, who were connec-
ted like Divodāsa with the Bhāradāja family, should be located in Irān,
and he finds in the Sarasvati, which formed the scene of Divodāsa's exploits,
not the Indian stream but the Irānian Harahvaiti. Thus the sixth book of
the Rigveda would carry us far west from the scenes of the third and
seventh which must definitely be located in India. But the hypothesis rests
on too weak a foundation to be accepted as even plausible.
Other references to connexions with Irān have been seen in two
names found in the Rigveda. Abhyāvartin Chāyamāna, whose victory
over Varaçikha has already been recorded, bears the epithet Pārthava, and
the temptation to see in him a Parthian is naturally strong. But the
Rigveda knows a Pțithi and later texts a Pțithu, an ancient and probably
mythical king, and thus we have in the Vedic speech itself an explanation
of Pārthava which does not carry us to Irān. Still less convincing is the
attempt to find in the word Parçu in three passages of the Rigveda a refer-
ence to Persians : Parçu occurs indeed with Tirindira as a man's name, but
the two are princes of the Yadus, and not a single personality, "Tiridates
the Persian? ' Whatever the causes which severed Irān and India, in the
earliest period, at least as recorded in the Rigveda, the relations of the two
peoples seem not to have been those of direct contact.
As little do the Rigvedic Indians appear to have been in contact with
the Semitic peoples of Babylon. The term Bekanāța which occurs along
with Paņi in one passage has been thought to be a reference to some Baby-
lonian word : though the Indian Bikaner is much more plausible as its
origin. Bribu, mentioned once as a most generous giver and apparently
also as a Paņi, has been connected by Weber with Babylon, but without
ground : more specious is the attempt to see a Babylonian origin for the
word manā found in one passage only of the Rigveda where it is accom-
panied by the epithet 'golden. ' The Greek mina, presumably borrowed
from the Phoenicians, is a plausible parallel ; but the passage can be ex-
plained without recourse to this theory3. A Semitic origin has been claim.
ed for the word paracu, 'axe,' but this too is far from certain. There is
nothing in the Rigvedic mythology or religion which demands derivation
from a non-Āryan source, though it has been urged that the small group of
the Adityas, whose physical characteristics are very faint and whose abstract
1 Irānian relations are accepted by Ludwig, Rigveda, vol. III, pp. 195 sq. ; Weber,
E pisches im vedischen Ritual, pp. 36 sq. See also Chapter X.
Op. cit. pp. 28 sq. ; Indische Studien, vol. XVII, p. 198.
3 For t e borrowing see Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, pp. 50, 51 ; Weber, Indische
Studien, vol. XVII, p. 202. Bohtlingk, Dictionary, 8. v. , recognises only desire' or 'wish'
as the sense.
;
## p. 79 (#113) #############################################
IV ]
FAMILY RELATIONS
79
nature is marked, is derived from a Semitic civilisation'. In the succeeding
period the Nakshatras or lunar mansions may more probably be ascribed
to a Semitic source ; but in the Rigveda the Nakshatras are practically
unknown, appearing as such only in the latest portions. It is therefore im-
possible to assume that the great Semitic civilisations had any real contact
with India in the Rigvedic age.
Scanty as is our information regarding the Vedic tribes, yet we can see
clearly that the social and political organisation rested upon the partiarchal
family, if we may use that term to denote that relationship was counted
through the father. The Āryan marriage of this period was usually
monogamic, though polygamy was not unknown probably mainly among
the princely class ; and in the household the husband was master, the wife
mistress but dependent on and obedient to the master. The standard of
female morality appears to have been fairly high, that of men as usual was
less exigent. Polyandry is not shown by a single passage to have existed,
and is not to be expected in a society so strongly dominated by the male
as was the Vedic. Of limitations on marriage we learn practically nothing
from the Rigveda, except that the wedlock of brother and sister and of
father and daughter was not permitted. Child marriage, so usual in later
times, was evidently unknown ; and much freedom of choice seems to have
existed. Women lived under the protection of their fathers during the
life of the latter, and then they fell if still unmarried under the care of their
brothers. Both dowries and bride-prices are recorded : the ill-favoured
son-in-law might have to purchase his bride by large gifts, while other
maidens could obtain husbands only through the generosity of their
brothers in dowering them. A girl without a protector ran grave risk of
being reduced to immorality to maintain herself, and even in cases where
no such excuse existed we learn of cases of moral laxity. But the high
value placed on marriage is shown in the long and striking hymn (x, 85)
which accompanied the ceremonial, the essence of which was the mutual
taking of each other in wedlock by the bride and bridegroom, and the con-
veyance
of the bride from the house of her father to that of her husband? .
In this hymn the wedlock of Soma, here identified with the moon, and Sūryā,
the daughter of the sun, is made the prototype and exemplar of marriage
in general. Moreover, the Vedic marriage was indissoluble by human
action, nor in the early period does it seem to have been contemplated
that remarriage should take place in the case of a widows. To this there
So Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, p. 193 ; Z. D. M. G. , vol. L, pp. 43 sq. ; but
see Bloomfield, Religion of the Veda, pp. 133 sq.
For the marriage ritual, sea Weber and Haas, Indische Studien, vol. v, pp.
177–412; Winternitz, Das altindische Hochzeitsrituell (1892).
See Delbrück, Die indogermamischen Verwandtschaftsnamen, pp. 553. 5. Possibly
remarriage was permitted in the case of a woman whose husband disappeared ; see
Pischel, Vedische Studien, vol. I, p. 27.
1
2
3
## p. 80 (#114) #############################################
80
[ch.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
ex-
>
was the exception, which appears clearly in the burial ritual of the Rigveda,
that the brother-in-law of the dead man should marry the widow, probably
only in cases where the dead had left no son and it was therefore imperative
that steps should be taken to secure him offspring ; for the Rigveda re-
cognises to the full the keen desire of the Vedic Indian for a child to per-
form his funeral rites.
The relation of child and parent was clearly as a rule one of close
affection ; for a father is regarded as the type of all that is good and kind.
There are traces, however, that parental rights were large and vague : if
the chastisement of a gambler by his father may be deemed to be legitimate
exercise of parental control, this cannot be said of the cruel act of his
father in blinding Rijrāçva at which the Rigveda hints. The father pro.
bably controlled in some measure at least both son and daughter as regards
marriage; and the right of the father to adopt is clearly recognised by
the Rigveda, though a hymn ascribed to the family of Vasishtha disappro.
ves of the practice. The son after marriage must often have lived in
the house and under the control of his father, of whom his wife was
pected to stand in awe. But, on the other hand, as the father advanced
in years it cannot have been possible for him to maintain a control which
he was physically incapable of exercising ; and so we find the bride enjoin.
ed to be mistress over her step-parents, doubtless in the case when her
husband, grown to manhood, had taken over the management of the house.
hold from his father's failing hands.
The head of the family appears also to have been the owner of the
property of the family ; but on this point we are reduced in the main to
conjecture. It is certain that the Rigveda recognises to the full individual
ownership of movable things, cattle, horses, gold, ornaments, weapons,
slaves, and so forth. It seems also certain that land was already owned by
individuals or families : the term kshetra, 'field', is unmistakably employed
in this sense, and in one hymn a maiden, Apālā, places her father's culti-
vated field (urvara) on the same level with his hair as a personal possession.
Reference is also made to the measuring of fields, and to khilya, which
appear to have been strips of land between the cultivated plots, probably
used by the owners of the plots in common. The Rigveda has no conclusive
evidence that the sons were supposed to have any share whatever in the land
of the family, and the presumption is that it was vested in the father alone,
as long as he was head of the family and exercised his full powers as head.
We are left also to conjecture as to whether the various plots were held in
perpetuity by the head of the family and his descendants, or whether there
were periodic redistributions, and as to the conditions on which, if there were
several sons, they could obtain the new allotments necessary to support
themselves and their families. But there can hardly have been much diffi.
>
1
1
1
## p. 81 (#115) #############################################
IV]
SOCIAL GROUPS
81
culty in obtaining fresh land ; for it is clear that population was scanty and
spread over wide areas, and wealth doubtless eonsisted in the main in
Alocks and herds.
There is no hint in the Rigveda of the size to which a family might
grow and yet keep together. It is clear that there might be three generations
under the same roof, and a family might thus be of considerable dimensions
But life can hardly have been long-so much stress is laid on longevity as a
great boon that it must have been rare-and, even if we decline to accept the
view that exposure of aged parents was normal, there must have been a
tendency for the family to break up as soon as the parent died, especially
if, as is probable, there was no such land hunger as to compel the sons to
stay together. The sons would, however, naturally enough stay in the vici-
nity of one another for mutual support and assistance. The little knot of
houses of the several branches of the family would together form the nucleus
of the second stage in Rigvedic society, the grāmi, ‘village, though some
have derived its name originally from the sense ‘hordel' as describing the
armed force of the tribe which in war fought in the natural divisions of
family and family. Next in order above the grāma in the orthodox theory
was the vic or 'canton,' while a group of cantons made up the jana, 'people. '
This scheme can be supported by apparent analogies not only from Greece,
Italy, Germany and Russia, but also from the Irānian state with the
graduated hierarchy of family or households, vis, zantu, and dahyu? . But for
Vedic India the fourfold gradation cannot successfully be maintained. It
is not merely that the various terms are used with distressing vagueness - so
that for example the Bharatas can be called at one time a jana and at
another a grāma -- but that the evidence for the relationship of subordination
between the grāma and the viç is totally wanting. Moreover the Irānian
evidence tells against the theory that the viç is removed by the grāma from
the family in the narrow sense : the more legitimate interpretation is to see
in the Irānian division a step further than that of the Rigveda and to set the
jana as parallel to the zantu, acknowledging that in the time of the Rigveda
the political organisation of the people had not extended to the creation of
aggregates of janas, unless such an aggregate is presented to us in the twenty-
one janas of the two Viakaraņas who are mentioned in one passage of the
Samhitā. The viç will thus take its place beside the Irānian vis as a clan
as opposed to family in the narrower sense, and be a real parallel to the
Latin gens, and the Greek genoe. It is possible that the grāma is originally
the gens in it military aspect, but even that it is not certain, for the word
may originally have referred to locality. Nor can we say with any certainty
1 See Zimmer, Altindisches Leten, pp. 159, 160 ; Feist, Kultur, Ausbreitung, und
Herkunft der Indogermanen, p. 143.
2 Zimmer, l. c. ; Geiger, Ostiramische Kultur, p.
## p. 82 (#116) #############################################
82
(CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
a
>
for the period of the Rigveda whether the grāma contained the whole of a
viç, or part of a viç, or parts of several viças. But amid much that is
conjectural it is clear that the viç was not a normal unit for purposes of
government, for the term viçpali, ‘lord of a vis', has not in any passage the
technical sense of 'lord of a canton. ' On the other hand, the grāma as a
unit is recognised by the use of the term grāmaņi, 'leader of a village,' an
officer who appears in the Rigveda, and who was probably invested with both
military and civil functions, though we have no details of his duties or
powers.
While the sense "clan' is comparatively rare, the word viç not
unfrequently in the plural denotes 'subjects': so we hear of the viças of
Tļiņaskanda, a king elsewhere unknown, and of the viças of the Tșitsus,
the royal family of which Sudās was a member. In the former case the
sense clans' is obviously inappropriate, while in the latter the rendering
'clans' which was long adopted has resulted in the confusion of the relations
of the Bharatas and the Tșitsus, the Tșitsus being regarded as a people
opposed to the Bharatas, instead of taking their place as the rulers of the
Bharatas. The subjects as a whole made up the jana, a term which in Vedic
use denotes either the individual man or the collective manhood of the
tribe as a political unit. Above that unit no political organisation can be
shown to have existed. The confederacy of the five tribes by whom Sudās
was attacked was evidently more than a mere passing episode, but clearly
it did not involve any system of political subordination, from which a great
kingdom could emerge.
There was however beyond that a feeling of
kinship among all the tribes who called themselves Āryan, stimulated no
doubt into distinct expression by their presence in the midst of the dark
aboriginal population.
The question now presents itself as to the extent to which in the
period of the Rigveda the caste system had been developed. The existence of
the caste system in any form in the age of the Rigveda has been denied by
high authority, though it has been asserted of late with increasing insistence. ?
In one sense, indeed, its presence in the Rigveda cannot be disputed. In the
Purushasūkta, the four castes of the later texts, Brāhmaṇa (“priest'), Rājanya
('prince' or more broadly 'warrior'), Vaiçya ('commoner'), and Çūdra are
mentioned. But this hymn is admittedly late and can prove nothing for the
state of affairs prevailing when the bulk of the Rigveda was composed. On
the other hand, as we have seen, the distinction between the Āryan colour
(varna) and that of the aborigines is essential and forms a basis of caste.
1 sq.
Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. 12, pp. 239 sq. ; Zimmer, Altisndishes Leben,
pp. 185—203 ; Weber, Indische Studien, vol. X, pp.
2See Geldner, Vedische Studien, vol. II, p. 146 ; Oldenberg, Z. D. M. G. , vol. LI,
pp. 267 sq.
## p. 83 (#117) #############################################
IV ]
ORIGINS OF THE CASTE SYSTEM
83
The question is thus narrowed down to the consideration of the arguments
for and against the view that in the Āryans themselves caste divisions were
appearing. On the one hand, it is argued that in the period of Vasishtha
and Viçvāmitra, when the great poetry of the Rigveda was being produced,
neither the priestly class nor the warrior class was hereditary. The warriors
of the community were the agricultural and industrial classes, and the
priesthood was not yet hereditary. It has been held that the Brāhman priest
was not necessarily the member of an hereditary class at all, that the term
could be applied as well to any person who was distinguished by genius or
virtue, or who for some reason was deemed specially receptive of the divine
inspiration. The growth of the caste system is traced on this hypothesis to
the complication of life ensuing on the further penetration of the Āryans
from the Punjab towards the east. The petty tribes found it necessary, in
order to defeat the solid forces of the aborigines, to mass themselves into
centralised kingdoms. The petty tribal princes thus lost their full royal rank,
but found employment and profit instead in becoming a standing armed force,
ready to resist sudden incursion or to crush the attempts at rebellion of the
defeated aborigines. On the other hand, the industrial and agricultural
population, relying on the protection of the warrior class, abandoned the
use of arms. Together with the growth in the size of the kingdom and the
increasing complexity of civilisation, the simple ritual of an earlier period,
when the king himself could sacrifice for his people, grew to an extent which
rendered this impracticable, while at the same time an ever increasing
importance came to be attached to the faithful and exact performance of the
rites and the preservation of the traditional formulae. The result of this
process was, it is suggested, the growth of a priesthood, of a warrior class,
and of a third class, the Vaiçya, sharply distinguished from one another and
strictly hereditary. But the comparatively late date of this development is
shown by the fact that in later times the inhabitants of the North-West, the
home of the Rigveda, were regarded as semi-barbarians by those of the
Middle Country, in which the Brāhmanical civilisation had developed itself,
on the ground that they did not follow the strict caste system.
While there is much of truth in this view, it must be admitted that
it exaggerates the freedom of the Rigveda from caste. As we have seen, the
probabilities are that the main, though not the earliest, part of the Samhitā
had its origin not in the Punjab proper but in the sacred country of later
Brāhmanism, the land known in the Samhitās of the succeeding period as
Brahmăvarta. Moreover, there is no actual proof in the Rigveda that the
priesthood was not then a closed hereditary class. The term Brāhmaṇa, ‘son
of a Brahmā,' seems, on the contrary, to show that the priesthood was
normally hereditary, and there is no instance which can be quoted of any
person who is said to be other than a priest appearing to exercise priestly
## p. 84 (#118) #############################################
84
(ca.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
a
functions. We are told that there is a case of a king exercising the functions
of domestic priest and sacrificing himself for his people, but the alleged case,
that of Devāpi, rests only on an assertion of a commentator on the hymn
(x, 98), in which Devāpi appears, that he was originally a king. Even, how-
ever, if this were the case, it must be remembered that even after the
complete establishment of the caste system, it was still the privilege of kings
to exercise some priestly functions, such as that of the study of the nature
of the absolute, a practice ascribed to them in the Upanishads. The
arguments regarding the warrior class rest on a misunderstanding. Even in
the latest Vedic period we have no ground to suppose that there was a
special class which reserved its energies for war alone, and that the industrial
population and the agriculturists allowed the fate of their tribe to be decided
by contest between warrior bands, but the Rigveda certainly knows of a
ruling class, the Kshatriya, and the Vedic kingship was normally hereditary,
so that we may well believe that even then there existed, though perhaps
only in embryo, a class of nobles, who are aptly named in the term of the
Purushasūkta, Rājanyas, as being 'men of kingly family. There are traces,
moreover, of the division of the tribe into the holy power (brahman), the
kingly power (kshatra), and the commonalty (viç), and, while it is true that
the caste system is only in process of development in the Rigveda, it seems
impossible to deny that much of the groundwork upon which the later
elaborate structure was based was already in existence.
So far, our sources of knowledge, if imperfect, have given us material
sufficient to sketch the main outlines of Vedic society. Unhappily, when we
turn to consider more closely the details of the political organisation proper,
the evidence becomes painfully scanty and inadequate. The tribes of the
Rigveda were certainly under kingly rule: there is no passage in the Rigveda
which suggests any other form of government, while the king under the style
"Rājan' is a frequent figure. This is only what might be expected in a com-
munity which was not merely patriarchal-a fact whence the king drew bis
occasional style of vicpati. 'Head of the vic'- but also engaged in constant
warfare against both Āryan and aboriginal foes. Moreover, the kingship was
normally hereditary: even in the scanty notices of the Rigveda we can trace
lines of succession such as that of Vadhryaçva, Divodāsa, Pijavana, and
Sudās, or Durgaha, Girikshit, Purukutsa, and Trasadasyu, or Mitrātithi,
Kuruçravaņa, and Upamaçravas. In some cases it has been argued that
election by the cantons was possible! ; but this interpretation rests only on
the improbable view that viçaḥ denotes not 'subjects' but cantons'; and the
| See Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, pp. 162 sq. ; Weber, Indische Studien, vol.
XVII, p. 189 ; Bloomfield, Sacred Books of the Eust, vol. XLII, p. 330. That sometimes
election actually took place is quite probable ; but the passages quoted do not show
this ; see Geldner, Vedische Studien, vol. II, p. 303.
## p. 85 (#119) #############################################
IV ]
POLITICAL ORGANISATION
85
.
idea has no support in later literature. The activity of the sovereign on
which most stress is laid is his duty of protecting his subjects; and even the
Rigveda, despite its sacerdotal character, allows us to catch some glimpses
of the warlike deeds of such men as Divodāsa, Sudās, and Trasadasyu. Of
the king's functions in peace the Rigveda is silent, beyond showing that
he was expected to maintain a large body of priests to perform the sacrifices
for him and his people. From his subjects he was marked out by his
glittering apparel, his palace, and his retinue, which doubtless included the
princes of the royal house as well as mere retainers. To maintain his state
he had the tribute paid by conquered tribes and the gifts of his people,
which, once proffered freely, had doubtless become fixed payments, which
the king could exact, if denied. Doubtless, too, when lands were conquered
from the aborigires or from other Aryan tribes, large booty in land and
slaves and cattle would be meted out to the king; but the Rigveda contains
no hint that he was considered as owner of the land of the people. Nor in
that Samhitā is there any trace that the king, has developed from the
priest : if that was the case in India the distinction lies far beyond the
period of the Rigveda.
Of the entourage of the king and his servants we learn almost nothing.
The senānī, 'leader of the army,' who appears in a few hymns, may have
been a general appointed by the king to lead an expedition of too little im-
portance to require his own intervention. The grāmaņī probably led in war
a minor portion of the host and was identical with the vrājapati mentioned
elsewhere. Far more important, in the estimation at least of the composers
of the hymns, was the purohita or domestic priest, whose position represent-
ed the height of a priest's ambition. Nor, after allowing for priestly partia-
lity and exaggeration, can we deny the importance of the Purohita amongst
a people who followed the guiding in religious matters of an hereditary
priesthood. The Vedic Purohita was the forerunner of the Brāhman states-
men who from time to time in India have shown conspicuous ability in the
management of affairs ; and there is no reason to doubt that a Viçvāmitra
or a Vasishtha was a most important element of the government of the early
Vedic realm. It is clear, too, from the hymns which are attributed to the
families of these sages, that the Purohita accompanied the king to battle,
and seconded his efforts for victory by his prayers and spells. In return for
his faithful service the rewards of the Purohita were doubtless large : the
dānastutis of the Rigveda tell of the generous gifts of patrons to the poets,
and we may safely assume that the largest donations were those of kings to
the Purohitas. It is significant of the social arrangements of the time that
the gifts enumerated are all gifts of personal property ; land was evidently
not then a normal form of gift, though we may conjecture that, even at this
early period, the king might confer on a priest or other servant the right to
## p. 86 (#120) #############################################
86
[ch.
TAE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
receive some portion of the gifts in kind which were clearly no inconsider-
able part of the royal revenues.
The power of the king cannot have been in normal circumstances
arbitrary or probably very great. "There stood beside him as the mode of
expression of the will of the people the assembly, which is denoted by the
terms samiti and sabha in the Samhitā. It has been proposed by Ludwig to
see in these two terms the designations of two different forms of assembly :
the one would be the assembly of the whole people, while the other would
be an analogue of the Homeric council of elders, a select body to which
the great men of the tribe, the Maghavans, alone would go to take counsel
with the king. Zimmer? , on the other hand, sees in the samiti the popular
assembly of the tribe, in the sabhā the assembly of the village. But
neither view appears to be acceptable. There is no distinction in the texts
which would justify us in contrasting sabhā and samiti in either of the
ways suggested : rather it seems the samiti is the assembly of the people
for the business of the tribe, the sabhā particularly the place of assembly,
which served besides as a centre of social gatherings. The king's presence
in the samiti is clearly referred to ; and there seems no reason to doubt
that on great occasions the whole of the men of the tribe gathered there to
deliberate, or at least to decide, on the courses laid before them by the
great men of the tribe. But we are reduced to analogy with the Homeric
assembly for any conception of the action of the assembly; for, per haps
owing to the nature of the sources, nothing is known of its part in Vedic
life. If indeed the king was ever elected by the cantons, the election
tock place in the samiti ; but the theory that the king was ever elected has,
as has been already said, nothing to support it.
In accordance with the apparently undeveloped condition of political
organisation, we learn little of the administration of justice. That the king
exercised criminal and civil jurisdiction, assisted by assessors, is a conclusion
which must rest for its plausibility on analogy and on the later practice in
India ; for no passage in the Rigveda definitely alludes to the sovereign as
acting in either capacity. It is therefore at least probable that his functions
as judge were still confined within narrow limits. One word in the Rigveda
shows that the system of wergeld was in full force, a man being given the
epithet çatadāya, which denotes that the price of his blood was a hundred
cows. In one hymn the Paņi, whose niggardliness made him the chief object
of dislike to the greedy Vedic poets, is declared to be a man only in so far as
he has a wergeld, here called vairadeya, 'that which is to be paid in respect
of enmity. ' The crime, however, of which most is recorded in the Rigveda
is that of theft, including burglary, house-breaking, and highway robbery,
crimes which clearly must have been of frequent occurrence. The punish-
1 Rigveda, vol. III, p. 253. 2 Altindisches Leben, pp. 172-4.
>
## p. 87 (#121) #############################################
IV ]
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
87
ment of the thief seems to have rested with the person wronged : there are
clear allusions to binding the thief in stocks, presumably with a view to
induce his relatives to pay back to the aggrieved man the loss he has sus-
tained. In one passage of the Rigveda there is a probable reference to the
employment of trained men to recover stolen cattle, just as the Khojis of
the Punjab down to modern times were expert at this difficult employment.
Of death as a punishment for theft, as in later times and in other primitive
societies, curiously enough nothing appears in the Rigveda.
There is hardly any mention of other forms of crime in the Rigveda.
It appears clear that marriage of brother and sister was regarded as incest,
and apparently marriage of father and daughter was placed in the same
category of wrongful actions, as it certainly was in the later Samhitās,
where the union of Prajāpati, one aspect of the supreme god, with his
daughter is at once punished by the other gods. Prostitution was certainly
not unknown, but in other respects morality seems to have been fairly
high : there is no sufficient ground for attributing to the peoples whose
actions are reflected in the Rigveda either the exposure of the aged or
the putting away of female children.
Our knowledge of civil law is as scanty as that of criminal law. As
we have seen, land seems not to have been an article of commerce. Movable
property could change hands by gift or by sale, the latter taking the
form of barter. The Rigveda records that in the opinion of one poet not
ten cows was adequate price for an image of Indra to be used doubtless as
a fetish. The haggling of the market is once clearly referred to. The
standard of value seems to have been the cow, and no coin appears to have
been known, though the origin of currency may be seen in the frequent
references to nishkas as gifts : the nishka most probably was an ornament
in the shape of a necklace of gold or silver: at a later date the name was
transferred to a gold coin. Property doubtless passed by inheritance and
could be acquired originally by a man's own efforts in creation or discovery,
while the dowry and the price of the bride played a considerable part in early
Vedic economy, as is seen by the stress laid upon both in the Samhitā. Of
forms of contract the only one of which we know anything was the loan,
ļiņa. The Vedic Indian was an inveterate gambler, and for that among
other causes he seems always to have been ready to incur debt. The rate
of interest is unknown, a reference to payments of an eighth or a sixteenth
may be referred either to interest or instalments of principal. At any rate,
the dobtor might as a result be reduced to slavery, as we learn from an
interesting hymn (x, 34) where an unsuccessful dicer recites the fatal fascina-
tion for him of the dice and his cons
nsequent ruin and enslavement with its
results for his family. Of civil procedure we know only so much as may
be inferred from a single word, madhyamaci, which may denote one who
a
## p. 88 (#122) #############################################
88
(CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
intervenes between two parties as an arbitrator, though it has also been
referred to the king as surrounded by his retainers in his camp.
In war the Vedic host was held by the king; and doubtless at this time
all the men of the tribe took part in it, encouraged by the priests, who with
prayer and incantation sought to secure victory for those whom they sup-
ported. The king and the nobles, the Kshatriyas, fought from chariots of
simple construction, the warrior standing on the left hand of the charioteer
on whose skill he so largely depended. The common people fought on foot,
doubtless with little attempt at ordered fighting, if we may judge from
analogy and from the confused battles described in the later epics. The
chief weapon in honour was the bow which was drawn to the ear and not
as in Greece to the beast ; but lances, spears, swords, axes, and slingstones
seem to have been employed. The warrior, when completely equipped,
wore coat of mail and helmet, and a hand or arm guard to save his arm
from the friction of the bowstring. The arrow had a reed shaft, and the tip
was either of horn or of metal : poisoned arrows were sometimes used.
Though horse riding was probably not unknown for other purposes, no
mention is made of this use of the horse in war. Naturally enough the
banks of rivers seem to have been frequently the spots chosen for the con-
flict, as in the case of the famous battle of the ten kings.
All the evidence points to the absence of city life among the tribes.
The village probably consisted of a certain number of houses built near each
other for purposes of mutual defence, perhaps surrounded by a hedge or
other protection against wild beasts or enemies. The pur, which is often
referred to and which in later days denotes a 'town,' was, as we have seen,
probably no more than a mere earthwork fortification which may in some
cases at least have been part of the village. In certain passages these puras
are called autumnal, and by far the most probable explanation of this
epithet is that it refers to the flooding of the plains by the rising of the
rivers in the autumn, when the cultivators and herdsmen had to take refuge
within the earthworks which at other times served as defences against
human foes. Of the construction of the Vedic house we learn little, but
the bamboo seems to have been largely used for the beams which borrowed
their name from it. In the midst of each house burned the domestic fire,
which served the Indian both for practical and sacrificial uses.
Like the aborigines, the Vedic Indians were primarily pastoral : the
stress laid by the poets on the possession of cows is almost pathetic. The
name of the sacrificial fee, dakshiņā, is explained as referring originally to a
cow placed ‘on the right hand' of the singer for his reward. The singers
delight to compare their songs to Indra with the lowing of cows to their
calves. At night and in the heat of the day the cows seem to have been kept
in the fold ; while for the rest of the day they were allowed to wander at
## p. 89 (#123) #############################################
IV )
WARLIKE AND PEACEFUL AVOCATIONS
89
>
will, being thrice milked'. Bulls and oxen on the other hand regularly
served for ploughing and drawing carts, a purpose for which horses were
not much used. Second to cattle came horses, which the Indian required
both for bearing his chariot into the battle and for the horse-race, one of
his favourite sports. Other domesticated animals were sheep, goats, asses,
and dogs, the last being used for hunting, for guarding and tracking
cattle, and for keeping watch at night. On the other hand, the cat had
not been domesticated.
Agriculture was already an important part of the Vedic economy.
The practice of ploughing was certainly Indo-Irānian as the same root
(krish) occurs in the same sense in the two tongues. But it is clear that
even in the Rigveda the use of the plough was increasing in frequency.
We learn of the use of bulls to draw the plough, of the sowing of seed in
the furrows thus made, of the cutting of the corn with the sickle, the
Jaying of it in bundles on the threshing floor, and the threshing and final
sifting by winnowing. Moreover, the use of irrigation seems to be re-
cognised in the mention of channels into which water is led. On the other
hand, the nature of the grain grown is uncertain : it is called yava, which in
the later Samhitās is barley, but it is quite uncertain whether this definite
sense can be assigned to the word in the Rigvedic period.
Hunting seems still to have played a considerable part in the life of
the day. The hunter used both bow and arrow and snares and traps.
There are clear references to the capture of lions in snares, the taking of
antelopes in pits, and the hunting of the boar with dogs. Birds were
captured in nets stretched out on pegs. Possibly the use of tame elephants
to capture other elephants was known, but this is very uncertain, for there
is no clear proof that the elephant had yet been tamed at this early date,
Buffaloes seem to have been shot by arrows, and occasionally a lion might
be surrounded by hunters and shot to death.
There is some evidence that already in this period specialisation in
industry had begun. The worker in wood has clearly the place of honour,
needed as he was to produce the chariots for war and the race, and the carts
for agricultural purposes. He was carpenter, joiner, wheelwright in one; and
;
the fashioning of the chariots is a frequent source of metaphor, the poet
comparing his own skill to that of the wheelwright. Next in importance was
the worker in metal who smelted ore in the furnace, using the wing of a
bird in the place of a bellows to fan the flame. Kettles and other domestic
utensils were made of meta). It is, however, still uncertain what that metal
which is called ayas was. Copper, bronze, and iron alike may have been
meant, and we cannot be certain that the term has the same sense through-
out. Of other workers the tanner's art is alluded to not rarely; and to
1 See Geldner, Vedische Studien, vol. II, pp. 282 sq.
## p. 90 (#124) #############################################
90
CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
women are ascrihed sewing, the plaiting of mats from grass or reeds,
and, much more frequently, the weaving of cloth. It is of importance to
note that there is no sign that those who carried on these functions were
in any way regarded as inferior members of the community, as was the
case in later times. This fact is probably to be explained by the growing
number of the servile population which must have steadily increased with
the conquest of the tribes, though we cannot conjecture the motives which
ascribed to inferior tasks which in the Rigvedic time were apparently
honourable and distinguished. Presumably even at this time the slave
population must have been utilised in assisting their masters in their various
tasks, agricultural, industrial, and pastoral; but the Rigveda unquestionably
presents us with a society which is not dependent on such labour, and in
which the ordinary tasks of life are carried out by the free men of the tribel.
This is one of the facts which show the comparative simplicity of the age of
the Rigveda as compared with the next period of Indian history.
Fishing is not directly mentioned ; and the Vedic Indian seems to
have been very little of a navigator. The use of boats, probably dug-outs,
for crossing rivers, was known, but the simplicity of their construction is
adequately shown by the fact that the paddle alone was used for their
propulsion. There is no mention of rudder or anchor, mast or sails, a fact
which incidentally negatives the theory that the Vedic Indians took any
part in ocean shipping.
Of the domestic life of the time we have a few details. The dress
usually worn consisted either of three or of two garments. These were
generally woven from the wool of sheep, though skins were also employed.
Luxury manifested itself in the wearing of variegated garments or clothing
adorned with gold. Ornaments in the shape of necklets, earrings, anklets,
and bracelets were worn by both sexes and were usually made of gold.
The hair was carefully combed and oiled. Women wore it plaited, while
in some cases men wore it in coils : it was a characteristic of the Vasishțhas
to have it coiled on the right. Shaving was not unknown, but beards were
normally worn, and on festive occasions men bore garlands. .
As was natural with a pastoral people, milk formed a considerable
part of the ordinary food, being taken in its natural state or mixed with
grain. Ghee or clarified butter was also much used. Grain was either
parched or ground into flour, and mixed with milk or butter, and made into
cakes. As throughout the history of India, vegetables and fruits formed a
considerable portion of the dietary. But the Vedic Indians, were a nation
of meat-eaters, nor need we believe that they merely ate meat on occasions
The view of Indian civilisation presented by Baden Powell (Indian Village
Community (1896) and Village Communities in India (1899), etc. ) which assumes that
the Āryans were princely conquerors of agricultural aborigines and not themselves
cultivators cannot be reconciled with the Rigveda.
a
1
## p. 91 (#125) #############################################
IV )
INDUSTRIES AND DOMESTIC LIFE
91
was
>
of sacrifice. Rather, as in the Homeric age, the slaughter of oxen
always in some degree a sacrificial act, and one specially appropriate for the
entertainment of guests, as the second name of the heroic Divodāsa
Atithigva, 'the slayer of oxen for guests, and as the practice of slaying
oxen at the wedding festival abundantly show. The ox, the sheep, and the
goat were the normal food eaten by men and offered to their gods : horse-
flesh was probably eaten only at the horse-sacrifice, and not so much as
ordinary food as with a view to gain the strength and swiftness of the
steed. There is no inconsistency between this eating of flesh and the growing
sanctity of the cow, which bears already in the Rigveda the epithet aghnya,
‘not to be killed. If this interpretation of the term is correct, it is merely
a proof of the high value attached to that useful animal, the source of the
milk which meant so much both for secular and sacred use to the Vedic
Indian.
and one hymn tells in obscure phrases of the distress to which his wife was
reduced by some misfortune, from which she was relieved by the birth of a
son, Trasadasyu. It is not unlikely that the misfortune was the death of
Purukutsa in the battle of the ten kings. The new ruler, as his name indi.
cates, was a terror to the Dasyus or aborigines, and seems not to have
distinguished himself in war with Āryan enemies. We hear of a descendant
Trikshi, and, apparently still later in the line, of another descendant Kuru.
çravaņa, son of Mitrātithi and father of Upamaçravas, whose death is
deplored in a hymn of the tenth book. The name is of importance and
significance, for it suggests that already in the later Rigvedic period the
Pūrus had become closely united with their former rivals, the Bharatas, both
tribes being merged in the Kurus, whose name, famous in the later Samhitās
1 V. inf. , pp. 90. 1, and Chapter X.
*
## p. 75 (#109) #############################################
IV ]
THE DĀSAS OR DASYUS
75
?
and the Brāhmaṇas as the chief bearers of the culture of the Vedic period,
is not directly mentioned in the Rigveda, though it was clearly not unknown.
Other princes of the Pūru line were Tryaruņa, and Trivſishan or Tridhātu ,
and later evidence enables us with fair certainty to connect with the Pūrus
the princely name Ikshvāku, which occurs but once in a doubtful context
in the Rigveda.
Connected with the Kurus were the Krivis, whose name seems to be
but a variant from the same root, and who appear to have been settled near
the Indus and the Chenāb. Possibly we may see the allied tribes of Kurus
and Krivis in the two Vaikarņa tribes, twenty-one of whose clans shared the
defeat of the five tribes by Sudās. If so, like the Pūrus the Bharatas must
have in course of time become mingled with the Kurus and have merged
their identity with them.
Allied or closely connected with the Bharatas was the tribe of the
Sțiñjayas, whom we must probably locate in the neighbourhood of the
Bharatas. One of their princes, Daiva vāta, won a great victory over the
Turvaças with their allies, the Vřichivants, of whom we know nothing more.
Other princes of the line were Sahadeva, his son Somaka, and Prastoka,
and Vītahavya. They were, like the Bharatas under Divodāsa, closely
connected with the Bhāradvāja family of priests.
No other Āryan tribe plays a great figure in the Rigveda. The Chedis,
who in later times dwelt in Bundelkhand to the north of the Vindhya, and
their king Kaçu are mentioned but once in a late dānastuti : the queen
of
the Uçīnaras, later a petty tribe to the north of the Kuru country, is also
once allued to. The generosity of Rinamchaya, king of the Ruçamas, an
unknown people, has preserved his name from extinction. One interpreta-
tion adds to the enemies of Sudās the tribe of the Matsyas ('fishes') who in
later times occupied the lands now known as Alwar, Jaipur, and Bharatpur.
A raid of the Turvaças and Yadus and a conflict on the Sarayul with Arna
and Chitraratha testify to the activity of these clans, which otherwise are
best known through their opposition to Divodāsa and Sudās, and which must
probably have been settled in the south of the Punjab. The family of the
Kanvas seems to have been connected as priests with the Yadus. Connected
with the Turvaças was the Vộichivant Varaçikha, who was defeated by
Abhyāvartin Chāyāmāna, who himself was perhaps a Sțiñjaya prince.
More shadowy still are Nahus, Tugrya, and Vetasu in whom some have
seen tribes : Nahus is probably rather a general term for neighbour, and
the Tugryas and the Vetasus are families rather than tribes.
More important by far, it may be believed, than the intertribal warfare
of the peoples who called themselves Āryan were their contests with the
aborigines, the Dāsas or Dasyus as they are repeatedly called. The same
1 The identification of this river is uncertain; see Vedic Index, vol. II, p. 434.
## p. 76 (#110) #############################################
7€
[CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
terms are applied indifferently to the human enemies of the Aryans and to
the fiends, and no criterion exists by which references to real foes can be
distinguished in every case from allusions to demoniacal powers. The root
meaning of both words is most probably merely 'foe', but in the Rigveda
it has been specialised to refer, at least as a rule, to such buman foes as were
of the aboriginal race. Individual Dāsas were Ilibiça, Dhuni and Chumuri,
Pipru, Varchin, and çambara, though the last at least has been transformed
by the imagination of the singers into demoniac proportions. The only
peoples named which can plausibly be deemed to have been Dāsas are the
Çimyus, who are mentioned among the foes of Sudās in the battle of the ten
kings, and who are elsewhere classed with Dasyus, the Kikatas with their
leader Pramaganda, and perhaps the Ajas, Yakshus, and çigrus. The main
distinction between the Āryan and the Dāsa was clearly that of colour, and
the distinction between the Āryan varņa, 'colour,' and the black colour is
unquestionably one of the main sources of the Indian caste system. The
overthrow of the black skin is one of the most important exploits of the
Vedic Indian. Second only to the colour distinction was the hatred of men
who did not recognise the Aryan gods : the Dāsas are constantly reproached
for their disbelief, their failure to sacrifice, and their impiety. Nor is there
much doubt that they are the phallus worshippers who twice are referred to
with disapproval in the Rigveda, for phallus worship was probably of
prehistoric age in India and by the time of the Mahābhārata it had won its
way
into the orthodox Hindu cult. We learn, disappointingly enough,
little of the characteristics of the Dāsas, but two epithets applied in one
passage to the Dasyus are of importance. The first is mridhravāchah which
has been interpreted to refer to the nature of the aborigines' speech ; but
which, as it elsewhere is applied to Āryan foes like the Pūrus, probably
means no more than ‘of hostile speech. The other epithet, anāsaḥ, is more
important : it doubtless means 'noseless,' and is a clear indication that the
aborigines to which it is applied were of the Dravidian type as we know it
at the present day. With this accords the fact that the Brāhūi speech still
remains as an isolated remnant in Baluchistān of the Dravidian family of
tongues? But though the main notices of the Rigveda are those of conflict
against the Dāsas and the crossing of rivers to win new lands from them,
it is clear that the Āryans made no attempt at wholesale extermination of
the people. Many of the aborigines doubtless took refuge before the Āryan
attacks in the mountains to the north or to the south of the lands occupied
by the invaders, while others were enslaved. This was so normal in the
In the Imp. Gaz. , vol. I, p. 382, it is suggested that the Brāhuis who are there
ethnographically classed as Turko-Irānian show the original type of Dravidian, and
that the modern Dravidian type is physically due to influence by the Mundā speaking
peoples. The Rigvedic evidence does not favour this view. See Chapter II, pp. 37. 8.
1
## p. 77 (#111) #############################################
IV ]
INDIA AND IRĀN
77
case of women that, in the literature of the next period, the term Dāsi
regularly denotes a female slave; but male slaves are often alluded to in the
Rigveda, sometimes in large numbers, and wealth was already in part made
up of ownership of slaves. The metaphorical use is seen in the name of
one of the greatest of Vedic kings, Divodāsa, 'the servant of heaven. '
In the Purushasūkta, or 'Hymn of Purusha,' which belongs to the latest
stratum of the Rigveda, and which in mystic terms describes the creation
of the four castes from a primeval giant, occurs for the first time the term
çūdra, which includes the slaves as a fourth class in the Āryan state. Pro-
bably enough this word, which has no obvious explanation, was originally
the name of some prominent Dāsa tribe conquered by the Āryans.
Of the stage of civilisation attained by the aborigines we learn little or
nothing. They had, it is certain, large herds of cattle, and they could when
attacked take refuge in fortifications called in the Rigveda by the name
pur, which later denotes 'town,' but which may well have then meant no
more than an earthwork strengthened by a pallisade or possibly occasionally
by stone. Stockades of this kind are often made by primitive peoples, and
are so easily constructed that we can understand the repeated references in
the Rigveda to the large numbers of such fortifications which were captured
and destroyed by the Āryan hosts. Some Dāsas, it seems, were able to
establish friendly relations with the Āryans, for a singer celebrates the
generosity of Balbūtha, apparently a Dāsa ; nor is it impossible, as we have
seen, that the five tribes of the Punjab were not above accepting the cooper-
ation of aboriginal tribes in their great attack on Sudās. We must therefore
recognise that in the age of the Rigveda there was going on a steady pro.
cess of amalgamation of the invaders and the aborigines, whether through
the influence of intermarriage with slaves or through friendly and peaceful
relations with powerful Dāsa tribes.
Like the Dāsas and Dasyus in their appearance both as terrestrial and
as celestial foes are the Paņis. The word seems beyond doubt to be con-
nected with the root seen in the Greek pernēmi, and the sense in which it
was used by the poets must have been something like ‘niggard. ' The
demons are niggards because they withhold from the Āryan the water of
the clouds ; the aborigines are niggards because they refuse the gods their
due, perhaps also because they do not surrender their wealth to the Āryan
without a struggle. The term may also be applied to any foe as an oppro-
brious epithet, and there is no passage in the Samhitā which will not yield
an adequate meaning with one or other of these uses. But it has been
deemed by one high authority to reveal to us a closer connexion of India
and Irān than has yet suggested itself : in the Dāsas Hillebrandt sees the
Dahae, in the Paņis the Parnians, and he locates the struggles of Divodāsa
1 Hillebrandt, Vedische Mythologie, vol. I, pp. 94 sq.
## p. 78 (#112) #############################################
78
[ ch.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
against them in Arachosia. Support for this view he finds in the record of
Divodāsa's conflicts with Bțisaya and the Pārāvatas, with whose names he
compares that of the Satrap Barsentes and the people Paruetae of Gedrosia
or Aria. Similarly he suggests that the Sțiñjaya people, who were connec-
ted like Divodāsa with the Bhāradāja family, should be located in Irān,
and he finds in the Sarasvati, which formed the scene of Divodāsa's exploits,
not the Indian stream but the Irānian Harahvaiti. Thus the sixth book of
the Rigveda would carry us far west from the scenes of the third and
seventh which must definitely be located in India. But the hypothesis rests
on too weak a foundation to be accepted as even plausible.
Other references to connexions with Irān have been seen in two
names found in the Rigveda. Abhyāvartin Chāyamāna, whose victory
over Varaçikha has already been recorded, bears the epithet Pārthava, and
the temptation to see in him a Parthian is naturally strong. But the
Rigveda knows a Pțithi and later texts a Pțithu, an ancient and probably
mythical king, and thus we have in the Vedic speech itself an explanation
of Pārthava which does not carry us to Irān. Still less convincing is the
attempt to find in the word Parçu in three passages of the Rigveda a refer-
ence to Persians : Parçu occurs indeed with Tirindira as a man's name, but
the two are princes of the Yadus, and not a single personality, "Tiridates
the Persian? ' Whatever the causes which severed Irān and India, in the
earliest period, at least as recorded in the Rigveda, the relations of the two
peoples seem not to have been those of direct contact.
As little do the Rigvedic Indians appear to have been in contact with
the Semitic peoples of Babylon. The term Bekanāța which occurs along
with Paņi in one passage has been thought to be a reference to some Baby-
lonian word : though the Indian Bikaner is much more plausible as its
origin. Bribu, mentioned once as a most generous giver and apparently
also as a Paņi, has been connected by Weber with Babylon, but without
ground : more specious is the attempt to see a Babylonian origin for the
word manā found in one passage only of the Rigveda where it is accom-
panied by the epithet 'golden. ' The Greek mina, presumably borrowed
from the Phoenicians, is a plausible parallel ; but the passage can be ex-
plained without recourse to this theory3. A Semitic origin has been claim.
ed for the word paracu, 'axe,' but this too is far from certain. There is
nothing in the Rigvedic mythology or religion which demands derivation
from a non-Āryan source, though it has been urged that the small group of
the Adityas, whose physical characteristics are very faint and whose abstract
1 Irānian relations are accepted by Ludwig, Rigveda, vol. III, pp. 195 sq. ; Weber,
E pisches im vedischen Ritual, pp. 36 sq. See also Chapter X.
Op. cit. pp. 28 sq. ; Indische Studien, vol. XVII, p. 198.
3 For t e borrowing see Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, pp. 50, 51 ; Weber, Indische
Studien, vol. XVII, p. 202. Bohtlingk, Dictionary, 8. v. , recognises only desire' or 'wish'
as the sense.
;
## p. 79 (#113) #############################################
IV ]
FAMILY RELATIONS
79
nature is marked, is derived from a Semitic civilisation'. In the succeeding
period the Nakshatras or lunar mansions may more probably be ascribed
to a Semitic source ; but in the Rigveda the Nakshatras are practically
unknown, appearing as such only in the latest portions. It is therefore im-
possible to assume that the great Semitic civilisations had any real contact
with India in the Rigvedic age.
Scanty as is our information regarding the Vedic tribes, yet we can see
clearly that the social and political organisation rested upon the partiarchal
family, if we may use that term to denote that relationship was counted
through the father. The Āryan marriage of this period was usually
monogamic, though polygamy was not unknown probably mainly among
the princely class ; and in the household the husband was master, the wife
mistress but dependent on and obedient to the master. The standard of
female morality appears to have been fairly high, that of men as usual was
less exigent. Polyandry is not shown by a single passage to have existed,
and is not to be expected in a society so strongly dominated by the male
as was the Vedic. Of limitations on marriage we learn practically nothing
from the Rigveda, except that the wedlock of brother and sister and of
father and daughter was not permitted. Child marriage, so usual in later
times, was evidently unknown ; and much freedom of choice seems to have
existed. Women lived under the protection of their fathers during the
life of the latter, and then they fell if still unmarried under the care of their
brothers. Both dowries and bride-prices are recorded : the ill-favoured
son-in-law might have to purchase his bride by large gifts, while other
maidens could obtain husbands only through the generosity of their
brothers in dowering them. A girl without a protector ran grave risk of
being reduced to immorality to maintain herself, and even in cases where
no such excuse existed we learn of cases of moral laxity. But the high
value placed on marriage is shown in the long and striking hymn (x, 85)
which accompanied the ceremonial, the essence of which was the mutual
taking of each other in wedlock by the bride and bridegroom, and the con-
veyance
of the bride from the house of her father to that of her husband? .
In this hymn the wedlock of Soma, here identified with the moon, and Sūryā,
the daughter of the sun, is made the prototype and exemplar of marriage
in general. Moreover, the Vedic marriage was indissoluble by human
action, nor in the early period does it seem to have been contemplated
that remarriage should take place in the case of a widows. To this there
So Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, p. 193 ; Z. D. M. G. , vol. L, pp. 43 sq. ; but
see Bloomfield, Religion of the Veda, pp. 133 sq.
For the marriage ritual, sea Weber and Haas, Indische Studien, vol. v, pp.
177–412; Winternitz, Das altindische Hochzeitsrituell (1892).
See Delbrück, Die indogermamischen Verwandtschaftsnamen, pp. 553. 5. Possibly
remarriage was permitted in the case of a woman whose husband disappeared ; see
Pischel, Vedische Studien, vol. I, p. 27.
1
2
3
## p. 80 (#114) #############################################
80
[ch.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
ex-
>
was the exception, which appears clearly in the burial ritual of the Rigveda,
that the brother-in-law of the dead man should marry the widow, probably
only in cases where the dead had left no son and it was therefore imperative
that steps should be taken to secure him offspring ; for the Rigveda re-
cognises to the full the keen desire of the Vedic Indian for a child to per-
form his funeral rites.
The relation of child and parent was clearly as a rule one of close
affection ; for a father is regarded as the type of all that is good and kind.
There are traces, however, that parental rights were large and vague : if
the chastisement of a gambler by his father may be deemed to be legitimate
exercise of parental control, this cannot be said of the cruel act of his
father in blinding Rijrāçva at which the Rigveda hints. The father pro.
bably controlled in some measure at least both son and daughter as regards
marriage; and the right of the father to adopt is clearly recognised by
the Rigveda, though a hymn ascribed to the family of Vasishtha disappro.
ves of the practice. The son after marriage must often have lived in
the house and under the control of his father, of whom his wife was
pected to stand in awe. But, on the other hand, as the father advanced
in years it cannot have been possible for him to maintain a control which
he was physically incapable of exercising ; and so we find the bride enjoin.
ed to be mistress over her step-parents, doubtless in the case when her
husband, grown to manhood, had taken over the management of the house.
hold from his father's failing hands.
The head of the family appears also to have been the owner of the
property of the family ; but on this point we are reduced in the main to
conjecture. It is certain that the Rigveda recognises to the full individual
ownership of movable things, cattle, horses, gold, ornaments, weapons,
slaves, and so forth. It seems also certain that land was already owned by
individuals or families : the term kshetra, 'field', is unmistakably employed
in this sense, and in one hymn a maiden, Apālā, places her father's culti-
vated field (urvara) on the same level with his hair as a personal possession.
Reference is also made to the measuring of fields, and to khilya, which
appear to have been strips of land between the cultivated plots, probably
used by the owners of the plots in common. The Rigveda has no conclusive
evidence that the sons were supposed to have any share whatever in the land
of the family, and the presumption is that it was vested in the father alone,
as long as he was head of the family and exercised his full powers as head.
We are left also to conjecture as to whether the various plots were held in
perpetuity by the head of the family and his descendants, or whether there
were periodic redistributions, and as to the conditions on which, if there were
several sons, they could obtain the new allotments necessary to support
themselves and their families. But there can hardly have been much diffi.
>
1
1
1
## p. 81 (#115) #############################################
IV]
SOCIAL GROUPS
81
culty in obtaining fresh land ; for it is clear that population was scanty and
spread over wide areas, and wealth doubtless eonsisted in the main in
Alocks and herds.
There is no hint in the Rigveda of the size to which a family might
grow and yet keep together. It is clear that there might be three generations
under the same roof, and a family might thus be of considerable dimensions
But life can hardly have been long-so much stress is laid on longevity as a
great boon that it must have been rare-and, even if we decline to accept the
view that exposure of aged parents was normal, there must have been a
tendency for the family to break up as soon as the parent died, especially
if, as is probable, there was no such land hunger as to compel the sons to
stay together. The sons would, however, naturally enough stay in the vici-
nity of one another for mutual support and assistance. The little knot of
houses of the several branches of the family would together form the nucleus
of the second stage in Rigvedic society, the grāmi, ‘village, though some
have derived its name originally from the sense ‘hordel' as describing the
armed force of the tribe which in war fought in the natural divisions of
family and family. Next in order above the grāma in the orthodox theory
was the vic or 'canton,' while a group of cantons made up the jana, 'people. '
This scheme can be supported by apparent analogies not only from Greece,
Italy, Germany and Russia, but also from the Irānian state with the
graduated hierarchy of family or households, vis, zantu, and dahyu? . But for
Vedic India the fourfold gradation cannot successfully be maintained. It
is not merely that the various terms are used with distressing vagueness - so
that for example the Bharatas can be called at one time a jana and at
another a grāma -- but that the evidence for the relationship of subordination
between the grāma and the viç is totally wanting. Moreover the Irānian
evidence tells against the theory that the viç is removed by the grāma from
the family in the narrow sense : the more legitimate interpretation is to see
in the Irānian division a step further than that of the Rigveda and to set the
jana as parallel to the zantu, acknowledging that in the time of the Rigveda
the political organisation of the people had not extended to the creation of
aggregates of janas, unless such an aggregate is presented to us in the twenty-
one janas of the two Viakaraņas who are mentioned in one passage of the
Samhitā. The viç will thus take its place beside the Irānian vis as a clan
as opposed to family in the narrower sense, and be a real parallel to the
Latin gens, and the Greek genoe. It is possible that the grāma is originally
the gens in it military aspect, but even that it is not certain, for the word
may originally have referred to locality. Nor can we say with any certainty
1 See Zimmer, Altindisches Leten, pp. 159, 160 ; Feist, Kultur, Ausbreitung, und
Herkunft der Indogermanen, p. 143.
2 Zimmer, l. c. ; Geiger, Ostiramische Kultur, p.
## p. 82 (#116) #############################################
82
(CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
a
>
for the period of the Rigveda whether the grāma contained the whole of a
viç, or part of a viç, or parts of several viças. But amid much that is
conjectural it is clear that the viç was not a normal unit for purposes of
government, for the term viçpali, ‘lord of a vis', has not in any passage the
technical sense of 'lord of a canton. ' On the other hand, the grāma as a
unit is recognised by the use of the term grāmaņi, 'leader of a village,' an
officer who appears in the Rigveda, and who was probably invested with both
military and civil functions, though we have no details of his duties or
powers.
While the sense "clan' is comparatively rare, the word viç not
unfrequently in the plural denotes 'subjects': so we hear of the viças of
Tļiņaskanda, a king elsewhere unknown, and of the viças of the Tșitsus,
the royal family of which Sudās was a member. In the former case the
sense clans' is obviously inappropriate, while in the latter the rendering
'clans' which was long adopted has resulted in the confusion of the relations
of the Bharatas and the Tșitsus, the Tșitsus being regarded as a people
opposed to the Bharatas, instead of taking their place as the rulers of the
Bharatas. The subjects as a whole made up the jana, a term which in Vedic
use denotes either the individual man or the collective manhood of the
tribe as a political unit. Above that unit no political organisation can be
shown to have existed. The confederacy of the five tribes by whom Sudās
was attacked was evidently more than a mere passing episode, but clearly
it did not involve any system of political subordination, from which a great
kingdom could emerge.
There was however beyond that a feeling of
kinship among all the tribes who called themselves Āryan, stimulated no
doubt into distinct expression by their presence in the midst of the dark
aboriginal population.
The question now presents itself as to the extent to which in the
period of the Rigveda the caste system had been developed. The existence of
the caste system in any form in the age of the Rigveda has been denied by
high authority, though it has been asserted of late with increasing insistence. ?
In one sense, indeed, its presence in the Rigveda cannot be disputed. In the
Purushasūkta, the four castes of the later texts, Brāhmaṇa (“priest'), Rājanya
('prince' or more broadly 'warrior'), Vaiçya ('commoner'), and Çūdra are
mentioned. But this hymn is admittedly late and can prove nothing for the
state of affairs prevailing when the bulk of the Rigveda was composed. On
the other hand, as we have seen, the distinction between the Āryan colour
(varna) and that of the aborigines is essential and forms a basis of caste.
1 sq.
Muir, Original Sanskrit Texts, vol. 12, pp. 239 sq. ; Zimmer, Altisndishes Leben,
pp. 185—203 ; Weber, Indische Studien, vol. X, pp.
2See Geldner, Vedische Studien, vol. II, p. 146 ; Oldenberg, Z. D. M. G. , vol. LI,
pp. 267 sq.
## p. 83 (#117) #############################################
IV ]
ORIGINS OF THE CASTE SYSTEM
83
The question is thus narrowed down to the consideration of the arguments
for and against the view that in the Āryans themselves caste divisions were
appearing. On the one hand, it is argued that in the period of Vasishtha
and Viçvāmitra, when the great poetry of the Rigveda was being produced,
neither the priestly class nor the warrior class was hereditary. The warriors
of the community were the agricultural and industrial classes, and the
priesthood was not yet hereditary. It has been held that the Brāhman priest
was not necessarily the member of an hereditary class at all, that the term
could be applied as well to any person who was distinguished by genius or
virtue, or who for some reason was deemed specially receptive of the divine
inspiration. The growth of the caste system is traced on this hypothesis to
the complication of life ensuing on the further penetration of the Āryans
from the Punjab towards the east. The petty tribes found it necessary, in
order to defeat the solid forces of the aborigines, to mass themselves into
centralised kingdoms. The petty tribal princes thus lost their full royal rank,
but found employment and profit instead in becoming a standing armed force,
ready to resist sudden incursion or to crush the attempts at rebellion of the
defeated aborigines. On the other hand, the industrial and agricultural
population, relying on the protection of the warrior class, abandoned the
use of arms. Together with the growth in the size of the kingdom and the
increasing complexity of civilisation, the simple ritual of an earlier period,
when the king himself could sacrifice for his people, grew to an extent which
rendered this impracticable, while at the same time an ever increasing
importance came to be attached to the faithful and exact performance of the
rites and the preservation of the traditional formulae. The result of this
process was, it is suggested, the growth of a priesthood, of a warrior class,
and of a third class, the Vaiçya, sharply distinguished from one another and
strictly hereditary. But the comparatively late date of this development is
shown by the fact that in later times the inhabitants of the North-West, the
home of the Rigveda, were regarded as semi-barbarians by those of the
Middle Country, in which the Brāhmanical civilisation had developed itself,
on the ground that they did not follow the strict caste system.
While there is much of truth in this view, it must be admitted that
it exaggerates the freedom of the Rigveda from caste. As we have seen, the
probabilities are that the main, though not the earliest, part of the Samhitā
had its origin not in the Punjab proper but in the sacred country of later
Brāhmanism, the land known in the Samhitās of the succeeding period as
Brahmăvarta. Moreover, there is no actual proof in the Rigveda that the
priesthood was not then a closed hereditary class. The term Brāhmaṇa, ‘son
of a Brahmā,' seems, on the contrary, to show that the priesthood was
normally hereditary, and there is no instance which can be quoted of any
person who is said to be other than a priest appearing to exercise priestly
## p. 84 (#118) #############################################
84
(ca.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
a
functions. We are told that there is a case of a king exercising the functions
of domestic priest and sacrificing himself for his people, but the alleged case,
that of Devāpi, rests only on an assertion of a commentator on the hymn
(x, 98), in which Devāpi appears, that he was originally a king. Even, how-
ever, if this were the case, it must be remembered that even after the
complete establishment of the caste system, it was still the privilege of kings
to exercise some priestly functions, such as that of the study of the nature
of the absolute, a practice ascribed to them in the Upanishads. The
arguments regarding the warrior class rest on a misunderstanding. Even in
the latest Vedic period we have no ground to suppose that there was a
special class which reserved its energies for war alone, and that the industrial
population and the agriculturists allowed the fate of their tribe to be decided
by contest between warrior bands, but the Rigveda certainly knows of a
ruling class, the Kshatriya, and the Vedic kingship was normally hereditary,
so that we may well believe that even then there existed, though perhaps
only in embryo, a class of nobles, who are aptly named in the term of the
Purushasūkta, Rājanyas, as being 'men of kingly family. There are traces,
moreover, of the division of the tribe into the holy power (brahman), the
kingly power (kshatra), and the commonalty (viç), and, while it is true that
the caste system is only in process of development in the Rigveda, it seems
impossible to deny that much of the groundwork upon which the later
elaborate structure was based was already in existence.
So far, our sources of knowledge, if imperfect, have given us material
sufficient to sketch the main outlines of Vedic society. Unhappily, when we
turn to consider more closely the details of the political organisation proper,
the evidence becomes painfully scanty and inadequate. The tribes of the
Rigveda were certainly under kingly rule: there is no passage in the Rigveda
which suggests any other form of government, while the king under the style
"Rājan' is a frequent figure. This is only what might be expected in a com-
munity which was not merely patriarchal-a fact whence the king drew bis
occasional style of vicpati. 'Head of the vic'- but also engaged in constant
warfare against both Āryan and aboriginal foes. Moreover, the kingship was
normally hereditary: even in the scanty notices of the Rigveda we can trace
lines of succession such as that of Vadhryaçva, Divodāsa, Pijavana, and
Sudās, or Durgaha, Girikshit, Purukutsa, and Trasadasyu, or Mitrātithi,
Kuruçravaņa, and Upamaçravas. In some cases it has been argued that
election by the cantons was possible! ; but this interpretation rests only on
the improbable view that viçaḥ denotes not 'subjects' but cantons'; and the
| See Zimmer, Altindisches Leben, pp. 162 sq. ; Weber, Indische Studien, vol.
XVII, p. 189 ; Bloomfield, Sacred Books of the Eust, vol. XLII, p. 330. That sometimes
election actually took place is quite probable ; but the passages quoted do not show
this ; see Geldner, Vedische Studien, vol. II, p. 303.
## p. 85 (#119) #############################################
IV ]
POLITICAL ORGANISATION
85
.
idea has no support in later literature. The activity of the sovereign on
which most stress is laid is his duty of protecting his subjects; and even the
Rigveda, despite its sacerdotal character, allows us to catch some glimpses
of the warlike deeds of such men as Divodāsa, Sudās, and Trasadasyu. Of
the king's functions in peace the Rigveda is silent, beyond showing that
he was expected to maintain a large body of priests to perform the sacrifices
for him and his people. From his subjects he was marked out by his
glittering apparel, his palace, and his retinue, which doubtless included the
princes of the royal house as well as mere retainers. To maintain his state
he had the tribute paid by conquered tribes and the gifts of his people,
which, once proffered freely, had doubtless become fixed payments, which
the king could exact, if denied. Doubtless, too, when lands were conquered
from the aborigires or from other Aryan tribes, large booty in land and
slaves and cattle would be meted out to the king; but the Rigveda contains
no hint that he was considered as owner of the land of the people. Nor in
that Samhitā is there any trace that the king, has developed from the
priest : if that was the case in India the distinction lies far beyond the
period of the Rigveda.
Of the entourage of the king and his servants we learn almost nothing.
The senānī, 'leader of the army,' who appears in a few hymns, may have
been a general appointed by the king to lead an expedition of too little im-
portance to require his own intervention. The grāmaņī probably led in war
a minor portion of the host and was identical with the vrājapati mentioned
elsewhere. Far more important, in the estimation at least of the composers
of the hymns, was the purohita or domestic priest, whose position represent-
ed the height of a priest's ambition. Nor, after allowing for priestly partia-
lity and exaggeration, can we deny the importance of the Purohita amongst
a people who followed the guiding in religious matters of an hereditary
priesthood. The Vedic Purohita was the forerunner of the Brāhman states-
men who from time to time in India have shown conspicuous ability in the
management of affairs ; and there is no reason to doubt that a Viçvāmitra
or a Vasishtha was a most important element of the government of the early
Vedic realm. It is clear, too, from the hymns which are attributed to the
families of these sages, that the Purohita accompanied the king to battle,
and seconded his efforts for victory by his prayers and spells. In return for
his faithful service the rewards of the Purohita were doubtless large : the
dānastutis of the Rigveda tell of the generous gifts of patrons to the poets,
and we may safely assume that the largest donations were those of kings to
the Purohitas. It is significant of the social arrangements of the time that
the gifts enumerated are all gifts of personal property ; land was evidently
not then a normal form of gift, though we may conjecture that, even at this
early period, the king might confer on a priest or other servant the right to
## p. 86 (#120) #############################################
86
[ch.
TAE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
receive some portion of the gifts in kind which were clearly no inconsider-
able part of the royal revenues.
The power of the king cannot have been in normal circumstances
arbitrary or probably very great. "There stood beside him as the mode of
expression of the will of the people the assembly, which is denoted by the
terms samiti and sabha in the Samhitā. It has been proposed by Ludwig to
see in these two terms the designations of two different forms of assembly :
the one would be the assembly of the whole people, while the other would
be an analogue of the Homeric council of elders, a select body to which
the great men of the tribe, the Maghavans, alone would go to take counsel
with the king. Zimmer? , on the other hand, sees in the samiti the popular
assembly of the tribe, in the sabhā the assembly of the village. But
neither view appears to be acceptable. There is no distinction in the texts
which would justify us in contrasting sabhā and samiti in either of the
ways suggested : rather it seems the samiti is the assembly of the people
for the business of the tribe, the sabhā particularly the place of assembly,
which served besides as a centre of social gatherings. The king's presence
in the samiti is clearly referred to ; and there seems no reason to doubt
that on great occasions the whole of the men of the tribe gathered there to
deliberate, or at least to decide, on the courses laid before them by the
great men of the tribe. But we are reduced to analogy with the Homeric
assembly for any conception of the action of the assembly; for, per haps
owing to the nature of the sources, nothing is known of its part in Vedic
life. If indeed the king was ever elected by the cantons, the election
tock place in the samiti ; but the theory that the king was ever elected has,
as has been already said, nothing to support it.
In accordance with the apparently undeveloped condition of political
organisation, we learn little of the administration of justice. That the king
exercised criminal and civil jurisdiction, assisted by assessors, is a conclusion
which must rest for its plausibility on analogy and on the later practice in
India ; for no passage in the Rigveda definitely alludes to the sovereign as
acting in either capacity. It is therefore at least probable that his functions
as judge were still confined within narrow limits. One word in the Rigveda
shows that the system of wergeld was in full force, a man being given the
epithet çatadāya, which denotes that the price of his blood was a hundred
cows. In one hymn the Paņi, whose niggardliness made him the chief object
of dislike to the greedy Vedic poets, is declared to be a man only in so far as
he has a wergeld, here called vairadeya, 'that which is to be paid in respect
of enmity. ' The crime, however, of which most is recorded in the Rigveda
is that of theft, including burglary, house-breaking, and highway robbery,
crimes which clearly must have been of frequent occurrence. The punish-
1 Rigveda, vol. III, p. 253. 2 Altindisches Leben, pp. 172-4.
>
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IV ]
ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
87
ment of the thief seems to have rested with the person wronged : there are
clear allusions to binding the thief in stocks, presumably with a view to
induce his relatives to pay back to the aggrieved man the loss he has sus-
tained. In one passage of the Rigveda there is a probable reference to the
employment of trained men to recover stolen cattle, just as the Khojis of
the Punjab down to modern times were expert at this difficult employment.
Of death as a punishment for theft, as in later times and in other primitive
societies, curiously enough nothing appears in the Rigveda.
There is hardly any mention of other forms of crime in the Rigveda.
It appears clear that marriage of brother and sister was regarded as incest,
and apparently marriage of father and daughter was placed in the same
category of wrongful actions, as it certainly was in the later Samhitās,
where the union of Prajāpati, one aspect of the supreme god, with his
daughter is at once punished by the other gods. Prostitution was certainly
not unknown, but in other respects morality seems to have been fairly
high : there is no sufficient ground for attributing to the peoples whose
actions are reflected in the Rigveda either the exposure of the aged or
the putting away of female children.
Our knowledge of civil law is as scanty as that of criminal law. As
we have seen, land seems not to have been an article of commerce. Movable
property could change hands by gift or by sale, the latter taking the
form of barter. The Rigveda records that in the opinion of one poet not
ten cows was adequate price for an image of Indra to be used doubtless as
a fetish. The haggling of the market is once clearly referred to. The
standard of value seems to have been the cow, and no coin appears to have
been known, though the origin of currency may be seen in the frequent
references to nishkas as gifts : the nishka most probably was an ornament
in the shape of a necklace of gold or silver: at a later date the name was
transferred to a gold coin. Property doubtless passed by inheritance and
could be acquired originally by a man's own efforts in creation or discovery,
while the dowry and the price of the bride played a considerable part in early
Vedic economy, as is seen by the stress laid upon both in the Samhitā. Of
forms of contract the only one of which we know anything was the loan,
ļiņa. The Vedic Indian was an inveterate gambler, and for that among
other causes he seems always to have been ready to incur debt. The rate
of interest is unknown, a reference to payments of an eighth or a sixteenth
may be referred either to interest or instalments of principal. At any rate,
the dobtor might as a result be reduced to slavery, as we learn from an
interesting hymn (x, 34) where an unsuccessful dicer recites the fatal fascina-
tion for him of the dice and his cons
nsequent ruin and enslavement with its
results for his family. Of civil procedure we know only so much as may
be inferred from a single word, madhyamaci, which may denote one who
a
## p. 88 (#122) #############################################
88
(CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
intervenes between two parties as an arbitrator, though it has also been
referred to the king as surrounded by his retainers in his camp.
In war the Vedic host was held by the king; and doubtless at this time
all the men of the tribe took part in it, encouraged by the priests, who with
prayer and incantation sought to secure victory for those whom they sup-
ported. The king and the nobles, the Kshatriyas, fought from chariots of
simple construction, the warrior standing on the left hand of the charioteer
on whose skill he so largely depended. The common people fought on foot,
doubtless with little attempt at ordered fighting, if we may judge from
analogy and from the confused battles described in the later epics. The
chief weapon in honour was the bow which was drawn to the ear and not
as in Greece to the beast ; but lances, spears, swords, axes, and slingstones
seem to have been employed. The warrior, when completely equipped,
wore coat of mail and helmet, and a hand or arm guard to save his arm
from the friction of the bowstring. The arrow had a reed shaft, and the tip
was either of horn or of metal : poisoned arrows were sometimes used.
Though horse riding was probably not unknown for other purposes, no
mention is made of this use of the horse in war. Naturally enough the
banks of rivers seem to have been frequently the spots chosen for the con-
flict, as in the case of the famous battle of the ten kings.
All the evidence points to the absence of city life among the tribes.
The village probably consisted of a certain number of houses built near each
other for purposes of mutual defence, perhaps surrounded by a hedge or
other protection against wild beasts or enemies. The pur, which is often
referred to and which in later days denotes a 'town,' was, as we have seen,
probably no more than a mere earthwork fortification which may in some
cases at least have been part of the village. In certain passages these puras
are called autumnal, and by far the most probable explanation of this
epithet is that it refers to the flooding of the plains by the rising of the
rivers in the autumn, when the cultivators and herdsmen had to take refuge
within the earthworks which at other times served as defences against
human foes. Of the construction of the Vedic house we learn little, but
the bamboo seems to have been largely used for the beams which borrowed
their name from it. In the midst of each house burned the domestic fire,
which served the Indian both for practical and sacrificial uses.
Like the aborigines, the Vedic Indians were primarily pastoral : the
stress laid by the poets on the possession of cows is almost pathetic. The
name of the sacrificial fee, dakshiņā, is explained as referring originally to a
cow placed ‘on the right hand' of the singer for his reward. The singers
delight to compare their songs to Indra with the lowing of cows to their
calves. At night and in the heat of the day the cows seem to have been kept
in the fold ; while for the rest of the day they were allowed to wander at
## p. 89 (#123) #############################################
IV )
WARLIKE AND PEACEFUL AVOCATIONS
89
>
will, being thrice milked'. Bulls and oxen on the other hand regularly
served for ploughing and drawing carts, a purpose for which horses were
not much used. Second to cattle came horses, which the Indian required
both for bearing his chariot into the battle and for the horse-race, one of
his favourite sports. Other domesticated animals were sheep, goats, asses,
and dogs, the last being used for hunting, for guarding and tracking
cattle, and for keeping watch at night. On the other hand, the cat had
not been domesticated.
Agriculture was already an important part of the Vedic economy.
The practice of ploughing was certainly Indo-Irānian as the same root
(krish) occurs in the same sense in the two tongues. But it is clear that
even in the Rigveda the use of the plough was increasing in frequency.
We learn of the use of bulls to draw the plough, of the sowing of seed in
the furrows thus made, of the cutting of the corn with the sickle, the
Jaying of it in bundles on the threshing floor, and the threshing and final
sifting by winnowing. Moreover, the use of irrigation seems to be re-
cognised in the mention of channels into which water is led. On the other
hand, the nature of the grain grown is uncertain : it is called yava, which in
the later Samhitās is barley, but it is quite uncertain whether this definite
sense can be assigned to the word in the Rigvedic period.
Hunting seems still to have played a considerable part in the life of
the day. The hunter used both bow and arrow and snares and traps.
There are clear references to the capture of lions in snares, the taking of
antelopes in pits, and the hunting of the boar with dogs. Birds were
captured in nets stretched out on pegs. Possibly the use of tame elephants
to capture other elephants was known, but this is very uncertain, for there
is no clear proof that the elephant had yet been tamed at this early date,
Buffaloes seem to have been shot by arrows, and occasionally a lion might
be surrounded by hunters and shot to death.
There is some evidence that already in this period specialisation in
industry had begun. The worker in wood has clearly the place of honour,
needed as he was to produce the chariots for war and the race, and the carts
for agricultural purposes. He was carpenter, joiner, wheelwright in one; and
;
the fashioning of the chariots is a frequent source of metaphor, the poet
comparing his own skill to that of the wheelwright. Next in importance was
the worker in metal who smelted ore in the furnace, using the wing of a
bird in the place of a bellows to fan the flame. Kettles and other domestic
utensils were made of meta). It is, however, still uncertain what that metal
which is called ayas was. Copper, bronze, and iron alike may have been
meant, and we cannot be certain that the term has the same sense through-
out. Of other workers the tanner's art is alluded to not rarely; and to
1 See Geldner, Vedische Studien, vol. II, pp. 282 sq.
## p. 90 (#124) #############################################
90
CH.
THE AGE OF THE RIGVEDA
women are ascrihed sewing, the plaiting of mats from grass or reeds,
and, much more frequently, the weaving of cloth. It is of importance to
note that there is no sign that those who carried on these functions were
in any way regarded as inferior members of the community, as was the
case in later times. This fact is probably to be explained by the growing
number of the servile population which must have steadily increased with
the conquest of the tribes, though we cannot conjecture the motives which
ascribed to inferior tasks which in the Rigvedic time were apparently
honourable and distinguished. Presumably even at this time the slave
population must have been utilised in assisting their masters in their various
tasks, agricultural, industrial, and pastoral; but the Rigveda unquestionably
presents us with a society which is not dependent on such labour, and in
which the ordinary tasks of life are carried out by the free men of the tribel.
This is one of the facts which show the comparative simplicity of the age of
the Rigveda as compared with the next period of Indian history.
Fishing is not directly mentioned ; and the Vedic Indian seems to
have been very little of a navigator. The use of boats, probably dug-outs,
for crossing rivers, was known, but the simplicity of their construction is
adequately shown by the fact that the paddle alone was used for their
propulsion. There is no mention of rudder or anchor, mast or sails, a fact
which incidentally negatives the theory that the Vedic Indians took any
part in ocean shipping.
Of the domestic life of the time we have a few details. The dress
usually worn consisted either of three or of two garments. These were
generally woven from the wool of sheep, though skins were also employed.
Luxury manifested itself in the wearing of variegated garments or clothing
adorned with gold. Ornaments in the shape of necklets, earrings, anklets,
and bracelets were worn by both sexes and were usually made of gold.
The hair was carefully combed and oiled. Women wore it plaited, while
in some cases men wore it in coils : it was a characteristic of the Vasishțhas
to have it coiled on the right. Shaving was not unknown, but beards were
normally worn, and on festive occasions men bore garlands. .
As was natural with a pastoral people, milk formed a considerable
part of the ordinary food, being taken in its natural state or mixed with
grain. Ghee or clarified butter was also much used. Grain was either
parched or ground into flour, and mixed with milk or butter, and made into
cakes. As throughout the history of India, vegetables and fruits formed a
considerable portion of the dietary. But the Vedic Indians, were a nation
of meat-eaters, nor need we believe that they merely ate meat on occasions
The view of Indian civilisation presented by Baden Powell (Indian Village
Community (1896) and Village Communities in India (1899), etc. ) which assumes that
the Āryans were princely conquerors of agricultural aborigines and not themselves
cultivators cannot be reconciled with the Rigveda.
a
1
## p. 91 (#125) #############################################
IV )
INDUSTRIES AND DOMESTIC LIFE
91
was
>
of sacrifice. Rather, as in the Homeric age, the slaughter of oxen
always in some degree a sacrificial act, and one specially appropriate for the
entertainment of guests, as the second name of the heroic Divodāsa
Atithigva, 'the slayer of oxen for guests, and as the practice of slaying
oxen at the wedding festival abundantly show. The ox, the sheep, and the
goat were the normal food eaten by men and offered to their gods : horse-
flesh was probably eaten only at the horse-sacrifice, and not so much as
ordinary food as with a view to gain the strength and swiftness of the
steed. There is no inconsistency between this eating of flesh and the growing
sanctity of the cow, which bears already in the Rigveda the epithet aghnya,
‘not to be killed. If this interpretation of the term is correct, it is merely
a proof of the high value attached to that useful animal, the source of the
milk which meant so much both for secular and sacred use to the Vedic
Indian.
