The Vedic period

Whatever its origins, a post-Indus culture developed in Northwest India which became the matrix for what comes to be known as the Vedic period. The social order of the Vedic period was primarily patrilineal, though women did have certain privileges.

While the social hierarchy may not yet have been characterized by the strictures on upward mobility found in the later caste system, three classes of “Aryan” society known as varnas (color or characteristic) were identified; these were the brahmanas associated with the priestly and teaching functions and the chief purveyors of the religious system; the ksatriyas or rajanyas, associated with protection and tribal leadership; and the vaisyas who engaged in those chores that helped perpetuate the social and commercial order.¹⁶ These classes came to be known as the “twice-born” inasmuch as they had access to the ritual life and other privileges.

In the early stages of this period, interaction with many of the indigenous people was discouraged. Indeed, the term dasa (“servant”) was used to refer to such people pejoratively.¹⁷ Nonetheless, over a period of centuries, there was indeed intermingling of the “Aryans” with other peoples. By the tenth century, at least, a fourth class of workers, known as sUdras had been included at the lowest echelon of the social structure. The skills developed during this period were clearly those of a well-settled rural people: the cultivation of grains, domestication of cattle, the use of brick in constructing sacrificial areas, and many others.

By at least the twelfth century bce, and possibly earlier, there had emerged a complex ritual system which represented the crux of Vedic religion.

1) An elaborate ritual system which enacted the socio-cosmic “contract” and the reciprocities within society itself. These rituals were often pragmatic - designed to enhance prosperity, afford a good crop, assure immortality, etc. They employed a rich system of symbols including the construction of symbolic spaces and the use of symbolically rich libations. A burgeoning com­munity of priests (brahmanas, anglicized as brahmans or brahmins) were the chanters and officiants, while the patrons (yajamanas) were usually wealthy members of the other layers of the social structure.

2) The exercise of a lively mythological imagination. Myths were created which speculated on how the world came to be and how the sacrifice, therefore, reproduced the creative process. These myths were undoubtedly post facto to the ritual system, and served to legitimate it. By purporting to tell the story of the world’s creation the mythmaker had a template as to how to act within the world. That is, the myth became both a model of the perceived reality of the world and social order and a model for that order.

3) There was a tendency to classify the social and cosmic order and to make connections and homologies.¹⁸ By the use of puns and homophones, entities could be linked or equated to other entities. In this way virtually anything could be said to be consistent with Vedic images and hence “Vedic” themselves. This is the formula by which later developments in what we refer to as Hinduism could be termed “Vedic,” so long as a brahmanic interpreter could make the connection that legitimated the later developments. One can see illustrations of this process throughout the history of Hinduism.

The ritual system

By the tenth to eighth centuries bce, the ritual system had become especially complex. Its purpose was several fold: not least important, the sacrifice re­enacted the creative process and maintained the socio-cosmic contract - that is, as people did in the social order, the gods were invited to do in the cosmic order.

There were two main types of rituals. Srauta or “corporate” rituals were public rituals ranging from those done twice a day to those done for specific seasons and those done for grand occasions. The agnihotra, for example, was a daily sacrifice but was also done at the new and full moon and every four months with seasonal change. The agnistoma included the offering of soma (the sap derived from the pressing of soma plants, which was believed to have transformative power). By at least the eighth century bce and beyond, large sacrificial rituals were used in connection with the royal trappings of kings or would-be kings. The rajasuya, for example, was a coronation ritual that lasted some thirteen months and served to legitimate the role of the king. In the asvamedha (horse sacrifice), a special horse was maintained for over a year only to be eventually sacrificed and dismembered; during this ritual, the queen engaged in verbal intercourse with the dead horse - the entire ritual was intended to valorize the status and authority of the king and to assure continuing prosperity.¹⁹

In these fire rituals, symbology was rich. The sacrificial hut, in which public rituals were performed, became a representation of the universe; the fire was homologized to the sun (and the soma libation to the moon). The sacri­fice of animals was eventually replaced by the use of milk, itself symbolically suggestive - for example, a ritual to bring harm to someone would use the milk of a sick cow in libation. Numerical symbols were important. A three-layered sacrificial hut would represent the three layers of the cosmos and perhaps the three seasons (rain, heat, and harvest); a five-layered arena offered the three primal layers plus two mid-spaces, etc.;²⁰ the upper layer of the cosmos became known as senega loka and eventually brahma loka- that is, bright or heavenly world nearly equal to the Milky Way.

Sound was extremely important in the exercise of these rituals. Sound was personified as vac, the female creative force. Pre-discursive sound was in the beginning; hence, the recitation of chants evoked the creative power operative at the beginning of creation. Often in later religious systems, the evocation of sound provided access to the power of creation or to the nature of the divine. In the Vedic setting, it was the brahman who had access to the appropriate sounds.

In addition to the srauta or public rituals, there was the practice of some household (grhya) rituals. Though not systematized until later, there are indications that funerals and marriages at least were performed in the late Vedic period. The funeral, for example, served to offer the body of the deceased as a sacrifice through the fire and to permit the “subtle essence” of the self to escape and be temporarily housed in a surrogate body usu­ally made of rice cakes, then to be eventually elevated to the first level of the cosmos. In four generations, this “subtle self” would attain the level of the pitrloka, the abode of the ancestors, from which there need be no return.²²

This sacrificial system was legitimated by the cosmogonic myths which purported to describe the beginnings of the world. These myths were eventually recorded in the later texts emerging from the Vedic period, specifically in the Rg Veda, the tenth book. Two such myths illustrate the dynamic.

The myth of Prajapati reported that in the beginning of time, the primal one, Prajapati (the lord of beings) or Purusa immolated himself. From his parts, the social order was made - brahmanas springing from his head, ksatriyas (warriors) from his shoulders and chest, vaisyas (“fecundators”) from his loins, and sudms (menial workers) from his feet.

Thousand-headed Purusa, thousand-eyed, thousand-footed - he, having pervaded the earth on all sides, still extends ten fingers beyond it.

Purusa alone is all this - whatever has been and whatever is going to be. Further, he is the lord of immortality and also of what grows on account of food.

Such is his greatness; greater indeed, than this is Purusa. All creatures constitute but one-quarter of him, his three-quarters are the immortal in the heaven.

With his three-quarters did Purusa rise up; one-quarter of him again remains here. With it did he variously spread out all sides over what eats and what eats not.

From him was Viraj born, from Viraj there evolved Purusa. He, being born projected himself behind the earth as also before it.

When the gods performed the sacrifice with Purusa as the oblation, then the spring was its clarified butter, the summer the sacrificial fuel, and the autumn the oblation.

The sacrificial victim, namely, Purusa, born at the very beginning, they sprinkled with sacred water upon the sacrificial grass. With him as oblation, the gods performed the sacrifice, and also the Sadhyas (a class of semidivine beings) and the rsis (ancient seers).

From the wholly offered sacrificial oblation were born the verses (rk) and the sacred chants; from it were born the meters (chandas); the sacrificial formula was born from it.

From it horses were born and also those animals who have double rows (i.e., upper and lower) of teeth; cows were born from it, from it were born goats and sheep.

When they divided Purusa, in how many different portions did they arrange him? What became of his mouth, what of his two arms? What were his two thighs and his two feet called?

His mouth became the brahman; his two arms were made into the rajanya; his two thighs the vaisya; from his two feet the sudra was born.

The moon was born from the mind, from the eye the sun was born; from the mouth Indra and Agni; from the breath (prana) the wind (vayu) was born.

From the navel was the atmosphere created, from the head the heaven issued forth; from the two feet was born the earth and the quarters (the cardinal directions) from the ear. Thus did they fashion the worlds.

Seven were the enclosing sticks in this sacrifice, thrice seven were the fire-sticks made when the gods, performing the sacrifice, bound down Purusa, the sacrificial victim.

With this sacrificial oblation did the gods offer the sacrifice. These were the first norms (dharroa) of sacrifice. These greatnesses reached to the sky wherein live the ancient Sadhyas and gods.²³

The myth, in sum, affirmed that the entire universe came from a single source and the sacrificial act replicated the creative process.

A different myth - that of the hiranyagarbha (golden reed or germ) reflected the idea of the poet imagining creation to be like the sun rising out of the waters of a river at dawn. The myth suggested that in the beginning a golden seed was deposited in the primal waters. From the seed a reed began to emerge and became the universe. Here the golden seed/reed was likened to the rising sun and the rising of the fire from its pit. Once again, the sacrificial fire was said to replicate the creative act and any number of “risings” came to be seen as creative.

Both of these myths and others served as templates in later forms of religion in India, especially in that stream which became known as “Hinduism.” Well after the heyday of the Vedic sacrificial system, the imagery of sacrifice was evoked as the model for religious living - in the city, the life of the householder was a sacrifice, the role of the wife was sacrifice, even the sexual act was understood to be sacrifice in the Kamasutra insofar as the female was the altar and the male was the spark. Similarly, the h.iianyagaibh.a has been homologized to towers, pillars, and trees; the temple tower was eventually understood to be the h.iiaHyagaibh.a, as was the yogin’s spine or the pipal tree which was thought to stand as the symbolic center of the world.

Hymns and commentaries

One of the legacies of the Vedic period has been remnants of hymns and eventually commentaries that were passed down orally for generations within priestly families. Some of the materials were eventually written, but, in some cases, perhaps not until as late as the fourth century bce. Attempts to reconstruct something of the character of Vedic society and religion based on these written sources has therefore been subject to a great variety in interpretation and considerable uncertainty.

Nonetheless, it is generally agreed that the first generation of these hymns was retained by four different sets of priests and were known as samhitas. The oldest of these samhitas was the Rg Veda, believed by many historians to reflect a tribal culture to be dated around 1200 bce.²⁴ Chanted and preserved by priests known as hotrs, some 1,028 hymns have been preserved and arranged in ten mandalas or cycles, though the first and last cycle are thought to have been later additions. These are hymns which were used in sacrifice, addressed to such deities as Indra (over 250 hymns), the lord of war and storm, and celestial counterpart to the ksatriya; and to Varuna (some twenty-five hymns) - counterpart to the brahmana, who presided at the highest reaches of heaven, holding the world together with his net of rta: the hymns were also addressed to fire personified as Agni; to Soma, the favored drink of Indra; and to other deities.

The later samhitds, in their oral form, reflected rudimentary patterns of agriculture and made reference to the area between the Jumna and the Ganges (the Rg Veda made no reference to the Ganges) and are generally dated to the tenth-eighth centuries bce. These samhitds include the Sama Veda, verses preserved by priests known as udgatrs (and possibly including women) whose chanting apparently represented the beginnings of Indian music insofar as their chants were “sung” and included several tones, perhaps representing levels of the cosmos.

Yet another samhita was the Yajur Veda. These stanzas were preserved by adhvaryu priests more in the form of prose than poetry. These priests preserved the details and techniques of the ritual; hence, their prose was more explanatory in nature - for example, because these were the priests involved in dismembering animals for sacrifice, they retained information about anatomy. This collection of material may have been the latest to be preserved.

A fourth samhita was the Atharva Veda. These were retained by those brahmana priests who presided over the rituals at large, but also retained the chants and incantations for specific private rituals. In this collection, for example, were intimations of “domestic” rituals and rites for marriage and funeral. The Atharva Veda was especially concerned with spells and rituals with “magical” intent; the exorcizing of spirits, cursing of enemies; and the ensuring of prosperity or success in love, battle, commerce, and other arenas. Many of the hymns and rituals are thought to reflect a more “popular” or “folk” form of religion.²⁵

A second generation of oral materials, and, eventually, texts are those known as the Brahmanas generally dated around the ninth-seventh centuries bce. These were the “elaborations,” provided by each school of priests, which served as commentaries. They were more likely to answer questions about why and how rituals were to be done. They embodied the sacred sound of the ritual and provided the rules (vidhi) for ritual. They included cosmo­logical speculations from each school and expositions on the meanings and aims of ritual acts.

A third generation of reflections and texts, known as the Aranyakas, represented a transitional period when the complex ritual system was beginning to change. The Aranyakas (or “forest texts”) emerged around the eighth-sixth centuries bce. They represented an attempt to reflect on the inner significance of the elaborate rituals. Teachers (gurus) and their disciples (s'isyas) were now thinking about rituals and internalizing their significance. The symbolism of the rituals became more critical than ritual performance itself and the attempt to make homologizations became a fundamental strategy to make “new” things seem consistent with the older “tradition.”

The shift of emphasis intimated in the Aranyakas served as prelude to the next stage of Indian culture and religion, a stage when towns were beginning to emerge in the Gangetic basin. Those who inherited the Vedic symbol system, primarily brahmans, were beginning the process of adapting to a changing landscape. There was apparently more questioning than before of the efficacy of ancient rituals, which led to speculations about the how and why of sacrifice.

The religious expressions of the Vedic period are often called “brahman­ism.” For the brahmans steeped in these traditions the Vedas came to serve as the authenticating and definitive core of their religious landscape. They spoke of the hymnic tradition as sruti - heard or revealed “literature.” Even though the practice of religion changed considerably in subsequent years, the orthodox legitimated most changes by referring them back to Vedic symbolism. Hence, all who sought to trace their lineage to those Vedic imageries were said to be vaidika. Those who did not (such as Jains and Buddhists) were said to be avaidika. Yet, it is worth recalling that even the Vedic symbols were themselves the product of a “dialectic” between pastoral and agricultural images, and between those who represented the brahmanic practice of ritual and the “folk” elements they had already begun to appropriate. This dialectic would recur often in the history of “vaidika” religion and is something of the “genius” of its preservation, adaptation, and change. This process is what some have called the “brahmanic synthesis.”

Recommended reading

On Indian prehistory

Allchin, Bridgett and Raymond. The Birth of Indian Civilization: India and Pakistan before 500 BC. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Bryant, Edwin. The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture: The Indo-Aryan Migration Debate. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Kennedy, K. A. R. and Possehl, G. L. eds. Studies in Archeology and Paleoanthropology of South Asia. New Delhi: American Institute of Indian Studies, 1984.

Lincoln, B. Myth, Cosmos, and Society: Indo-European Themes of Creation and Destruction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986.

Marshall, J. Mohenjo-daro and the Indian Civilization. Three volumes. London: Oxford University Press, 1931.

Parpola, A. The Sky Garment: A Study of the Harappan Religion and the Relation to the Mesopotamian and Late Indian Religions. Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 1985.

Parpola, A. Deciphering the Indus Script. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.

Piggott, Stuart. Prehistoric India. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1961.

Possehl, G. ed. Ancient Cities of the Indus. Durham: Carolina Academic Press, 1979.

Possehl, G. ed. Harappan Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective. Warminster: Aris and Phillips, 1982.

Renfrew, C. Archeology and Language: The Puzzle of Indo-European Origins. London: Jonathan Cape, 1987.

Sankalia, H. D. The Prehistory and Protohistory of India and Pakistan. Poona: Deccan College, 1974.

Shengde, M. J. The Civilized Demons: The Harappans in Rig Veda. New Delhi: Abhinav, 1977.

Wheeler, M. The Indus Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953.

On Vedic culture and religion

Gonda, J. Aspects of Early Vishnuism. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1965.

Gonda, J. Vedic Literature, History of Indian Literature. Weisbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1975.

Gonda, J. The Ritual Sutras, History of Indian Literature. Weisbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1977.

Gonda, J. Vedic Ritual: The Non-Solemn Rites. London: Brill, 1980.

Griffiths, R. T. H. Texts of the White Yajur Veda. Banares: Lazarus, 1957.

Heesterman, J. C. The Inner Conflict of Tradition: An Essay in Indian Ritual, Kingship and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985.

Heesterman, J. C. The Broken World ofSacrifice: Essays in Ancient Indian Ritual. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.

Jamison, Stephanie W. Sacrificed Wife, Sacrificer’s Wife: Women, Ritual, and Hospitality in Ancient India. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Knipe, D. In the Image of Fire: Vedic Experience of Heat. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1975. O’Flaherty, W. D., Tr. The RigVeda: An Anthology. New York: Penguin, 1981.

Renou, L. Religions of Ancient India. London: Athlone Press, 1953.

Renou, L. Vedic India. Calcutta: Sunil Gupta, 1957.

Smith, B. K. Classifying the Universe, The Ancient Indian Varna System and the Origins of Caste. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Smith, Bryan K. Reflections on Resemblance, Ritual, and Religion. New York: Oxford, 1989.

Smith, Frederick M. The Vedic Sacrifice in Transition; A Translation and Study of the Trihanandamandana of Bhaskara Misra. Poona: Bhandarhar Oriental Research Institute, 1987.

Staal, Frits. AGNI: The Vedic Ritual of the Fire Altar. Two volumes. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.