What Books and Burials Tell Us

"We know how historians use archaeological remains to know about the past in the absence of written sources. In this chapter we will see that historians also examine the literary sources to write the history of a period."

One of the oldest books in the world

• You may have heard about the Vedas. There are four of them - the Rigveda, Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda.
• The oldest Veda is the Rigveda, composed about 3500 years ago.
• The Rigveda includes more than a thousand hymns, called sukta or "well-said".
• These hymns are in praise of various gods and goddesses.
• Three gods are especially important: Agni, the god of fire; Indra, a warrior god; and Soma, a plant from which a special drink was prepared.
• These hymns were composed by sages (rishis).
• Priests taught students to recite and memorise each syllable, word, and sentence, bit by bit, with great care.
• Most of the hymns were composed, taught and learnt by men.
• A few were composed by women.
• The Rigveda is in old or Vedic Sanskrit, which is different from the Sanskrit you learn in school these days.
• The books we use are written and printed.
• The Rigveda was recited and heard rather than read.
• It was written down several centuries after it was first composed, and printed less than 200 years ago.

1.0Sanskrit and other languages

Sanskrit is a part of family of languages known as Indo-European. Some Indian languages such as Assamese, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri and Sindhi; Asian languages such as Persian and many European languages such as English, French, German, Greek, Italian and Spanish belong to this family. They are called a family because they originally had words in common. Take the words 'matr' (Sanskrit), 'ma' (Hindi) and 'mother' (English). Do you notice any similarities? Other languages used in the subcontinent belong to different families. For instance, those used in the north-east belong to the Tibeto-Burman family; Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam belong to the Dravidian family; and the languages spoken in Jharkhand and parts of central India belong to the Austro-Asiatic family.

2.0How historians study the Rigveda

• Historians, like archaeologists, find out about the past, but, in addition to material remains, they examine written sources as well.
• Some of the hymns in the Rigveda are in the form of dialogues.
• This is part of one such hymn, a dialogue between a sage named Vishvamitra, and two rivers, (Beas and Sutlej) that were worshipped as goddesses.
  

A page from a manuscript of the Rigveda. This manuscript of the Rigveda, on birch bark, was found in Kashmir. About 150 years ago, it was used to prepare one of the earliest printed texts of the Rigveda, as well as an English translation. It is now preserved in a library in Pune, Maharashtra.

3.0Cattle, horses and chariots

• There are many prayers in the Rigveda for cattle, children (especially sons), and horses.
• Horses were yoked to chariots that were used in battles, which were fought to capture cattle.
• Battles were also fought for land, which was important for pasture, and for growing hardy crops that ripened quickly, such as barley.
• Some battles were fought for water, and to capture people.
• Some of the wealth that was obtained was kept by the leaders, some was given to the priests and the rest was distributed amongst the people.
• Some wealth was used for the performance of yajnas or sacrifices in which offerings were made into the fire.
• These were meant for gods and goddesses.
• Offerings could include ghee, grain, and in some cases, animals.
• Most men took part in these wars.
• There was no regular army, but there were assemblies where people met and discussed matters of war and peace.
• They also chose leaders, who were often brave and skilful warriors.

4.0Words to describe people

• There are several ways of describing people - in terms of the work they do, the language they speak, the place they belong to, their family, their communities and cultural practices.
• There are two groups who are described in terms of their work - the priests, sometimes called brahmins, who performed various rituals, and the rajas.
• These rajas were not like the ones you will be learning about later.
• They did not have capital cities, palaces or armies, nor did they collect taxes.
• Generally, sons did not automatically succeed fathers as rajas.
• Two words were used to describe the people or the community as a whole.
• One was the word jana, which we still use in Hindi and other languages.
• The other was vish. The word Vaishya comes from vish.
• Several vish or jana are mentioned by name such as the Bharata jana or vish, the Yadu jana or vish, and so on.
• Sometimes, the people who composed the hymns described themselves as Aryas and called their opponents Dasas or Dasyus.
• These were people who did not perform sacrifices, and probably spoke different languages.
• Later, the term dasa (and the feminine dasi) came to mean slave.
• Slaves were women and men who were often captured in war.
• They were treated as the property of their owners, who could make them do whatever work they wanted.
• While the Rigveda was being composed in the north-west of the subcontinent, there were other developments elsewhere.

5.0Silent sentinels-the story of the megaliths

• The stone boulders are known as megaliths (literally big stones).
• These were carefully arranged by people and were used to mark burial sites.
• The practice of erecting megaliths began about 3000 years ago, and was prevalent throughout the Deccan, south India, in the north-east and Kashmir.
• While some megaliths can be seen on the surface, other megalithic burials are often underground.
• Sometimes, archaeologists find a circle of stone boulders or a single large stone standing on the ground.
• These are the only indications that there are burials beneath.
• All these burials have some common features.
• Generally, the dead were buried with distinctive pots, which are called Black and Red Ware.
• Also found are tools and weapons of iron and sometimes, skeletons of horses, horse equipment and ornaments of stone and gold.
  

6.0Finding out about social differences

• Archaeologists think that objects found with a skeleton probably belonged to the dead person.
• Sometimes, more objects are found in one grave than in another.
• In Brahmagiri, one skeleton was buried with 33 gold beads, 2 stone beads, 4 copper bangles, and one conch shell.
• Other skeletons have only a few pots.
• These finds suggest that there was some difference in status amongst the people who were buried.
• Some were rich, others poor, some chiefs, others followers.

7.0Were some burial spots meant for certain families?

• Sometimes, megaliths contain more than one skeleton.
• These indicate that people, perhaps belonging to the same family, were buried in the same place though not at the same time.
• The bodies of those who died later were brought into the grave through the portholes.
• Stone circles or boulders placed on the surface probably served as signposts to find the burial site, so that people could return to the same place whenever they wanted to.

8.0A special burial at Inamgaon

• It is a site on the river Ghod, a tributary of the Bhima.
• It was occupied between 3600 and 2700 years ago.
• Here, adults were generally buried in the ground, laid out straight, with the head towards the north.
• Sometimes burials were within the houses.
• Vessels that probably contained food and water were placed with the dead.
• One man was found buried in a large, four legged clay jar in the courtyard of a five-roomed house (one of the largest houses at the site), in the centre of the settlement.
• This house also had a granary.
• The body was placed in a cross-legged position.

9.0What skeletal studies tell us

It is easy to make out the skeleton of a child from its small size. However, there are no major differences in the bones of a girl and a boy.

Can we make out whether a skeleton was that of a man or a woman? Sometimes, people decide on the basis of what is found with the skeleton. For instance, if a skeleton is found with jewellery, it is sometimes thought to be that of a woman. However, there are problems with this. Often, men also wore ornaments.

A better way of figuring out the sex of a skeleton is to look at the bone structure. The hip or the pelvic area of women is generally larger to enable child bearing.

These distinctions are based on modern skeletal studies. About 2000 years ago, there was a famous physician named Charaka who wrote a book on medicine known as the Charaka Samhita. There he states that the human body has 360 bones. This is a much larger number than the 200 bones that are recognised in modern anatomy. Charaka arrived at this figure by counting the teeth, joints and cartilage.

10.0Occupations at Inamgaon

• Archaeologists have found seeds of wheat, barley, rice, pulses, millets, peas and sesame.
• Bones of a number of animals, many bearing cut marks that show they may have been used as food, have also been found.
• These include cattle buffalo, goat, sheep, dog, horse, ass, pig, sambhar, spotted deer, blackbuck, antelope, hare, and mongoose, besides birds, crocodile, turtle, crab and fish.
• There is evidence that fruits such as ber, amla, jamun, dates and a variety of berries were collected.

11.0Glossary

• Historians - Are the people who read and collect information about the past based on primary sources such as manuscripts, inscriptions and archaeology. They gather information from different sources and help us to understand how people lived and show comparison to present times.
• Vedas - The Vedas are a large body of religious texts originating in ancient India. Composed in Vedic Sanskrit, the texts constitute the oldest layer of Sanskrit literature and the oldest scriptures of Hinduism. There are four Vedas: the Rigveda, the Yajurveda, the Samaveda and the Atharvaveda.
• Sukta - The hymns in the Vedas have been referred to as 'Sukta' which means 'well-said.'
• Recite - To repeat or read aloud something memorized or prepared.
• Chariot - An open vehicle with two wheels that was pulled by a horse or horses in ancient times.
• Yajnas - Yajna, (Sanskrit: "sacrifice") also spelled yajna, in Hinduism, offerings to the gods based on rites prescribed in the earliest scriptures of ancient India, the Vedas, in contrast to puja, a later practice that may include image worship and other devotional practices.
• Megaliths - A very large usually rough stone used in prehistoric cultures as a monument or building block.

12.0MIND MAP