Vedic Period

Category
Indian
Begin
-1700
End
-900
Region
South Asia
Reference
Indian Periods from chapters and graph on page xii-xiii; [Keay: India: A History]
Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
The Indus civilization (Harappa Period) was replaced by Aryans in about 1500 BC; The Aryans introduced Hinduism. The Brahmanic caste system was established during this Vedic Age. "Gradually, the Aryans expanded from the Indus Valley into the lush Ganges Valley, which provided them not only with abundant harvests of rice and other crops but also with large deposits of iron ore for the manufacture of tools and weapons." [National Geographic Almanac, p. 59] The beginning of the Aryan settlement in India was concurrent with the Hittite conquest of Babylon (1595 BC). [Bauer: Ancient World, p. 201] Oral composition of the Veda began in about 1400 BC. [Bauer: Ancient World, p. 266] "The earliest collections of Indian hymns, the poetic Rig Veda, were composed in their own tongue. . . . Indra, Varuna, and Mitra, incidentally, appear as witnesses in a treaty between the Mitanni king and Suppiluliuma, the Hittite empire-builder; this shows not only that the Mitanni were arya, but that the arya were worshipping these gods long before they separated and went their different ways to the west and south." [Bauer: Ancient World, p. 264-5]