Chapter 4 What Books And Burials Tell Us

Mary In The Library

Libraries are repositories of knowledge, containing many books, some of which are very old and special. Exploring a library, particularly older sections, can lead to discovering significant historical texts, such as the Vedas.

One Of The Oldest Books In The World

The Vedas are among the oldest known texts in the world. There are four main Vedas:

1. The Rigveda
2. The Samaveda
3. The Yajurveda
4. The Atharvaveda

The Rigveda is the oldest Veda, composed approximately 3500 years ago. It contains over a thousand hymns, called sukta or "well-said". These hymns are devotional songs in praise of various gods and goddesses. Three deities are particularly prominent in the Rigveda:

• Agni: The god of fire.
• Indra: A warrior god.
• Soma: A plant from which a special ritual drink was prepared.

The hymns were composed by sages (rishis). Priests meticulously taught students to recite and memorize the hymns, focusing on each syllable, word, and sentence with great care. While most hymns were composed and taught by men, a few were composed by women. The language of the Rigveda is Old or Vedic Sanskrit, which differs from the form of Sanskrit taught in schools today.

Sanskrit And Other Languages

Sanskrit belongs to a large family of languages known as Indo-European. This language family includes:

• Some Indian languages (Assamese, Gujarati, Hindi, Kashmiri, Sindhi).
• Asian languages (Persian).
• Many European languages (English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Spanish).

Languages in this family are considered related because they share common words that originated from an earlier shared language. For instance, the words 'matr' (Sanskrit), 'ma' (Hindi), and 'mother' (English) show similarities.

Other language families exist in the Indian subcontinent:

• Tibeto-Burman family: Languages spoken in the northeast.
• Dravidian family: Includes languages like Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam.
• Austro-Asiatic family: Languages spoken in Jharkhand and parts of central India.

Unlike modern books that are written and printed, the Rigveda was initially transmitted orally. It was recited and heard rather than read. It was only written down centuries after its initial composition and printed less than 200 years ago.

How Historians Study The Rigveda

Historians investigate the past using both material remains (like archaeologists) and written sources. Studying texts like the Rigveda provides unique insights into the beliefs, practices, and society of the time.

Some hymns in the Rigveda are structured as dialogues. This format allows historians to understand perspectives and interactions between different figures or entities mentioned in the hymns. A famous example is a hymn in the form of a dialogue between the sage Vishvamitra and two rivers, Beas and Sutlej, who are personified and worshipped as goddesses.

A manuscript of the Rigveda on birch bark was found in Kashmir and used around 150 years ago to create one of the earliest printed versions and an English translation. This manuscript is now preserved in a library in Pune, Maharashtra.

Vishvamitra And The Rivers

The hymn featuring the dialogue between Sage Vishvamitra and the Rivers (Beas and Sutlej) provides valuable clues about the society and geography of the period:

• Composition Location: Historians suggest the hymn was composed in the region where these rivers flow, indicating the composer's familiarity with the area.
• Valued Animals: The sage compares the rivers to swift horses and shining cows, suggesting that horses and cows were highly valued animals in the society of the time. This is why they are used as metaphors for powerful and life-giving rivers. Chariots are also mentioned as a mode of transport.
• Modes of Transport: The dialogue explicitly mentions chariots and carts, indicating they were modes of transport used by people like the sage when traveling to the rivers.
• River References: Besides Beas and Sutlej, other rivers like the Indus, its tributaries, and the Sarasvati are frequently named in the Rigveda hymns, indicating their importance. The Ganga and Yamuna rivers are mentioned only once, suggesting they were less prominent in the geographical focus of the Rigvedic people compared to the Indus and its western tributaries.

By analyzing such hymns, historians can deduce aspects of the geographical setting, important elements of daily life, technology (like chariots), and the values of the Rigvedic people.

Cattle, Horses And Chariots

The Rigveda contains numerous prayers for valuable resources and desired outcomes, frequently mentioning: **cattle, children (especially sons), and horses**.

Horses were particularly important as they were yoked to **chariots**. Chariots were primarily used in **battles**. These battles were fought for several reasons:

• To capture cattle, which were a significant form of wealth.
• For control over land, important for pasture (grazing) and for growing hardy crops that ripened quickly (like barley).
• For access to water resources.
• To capture people (who might be made slaves).

Wealth acquired from battles was distributed among the leaders, priests, and the rest of the people. Some wealth was used for performing yajnas or **sacrifices**, rituals involving offerings made into the fire for gods and goddesses. Offerings included ghee, grain, and sometimes animals.

Most men participated in these wars. There was no standing, regular army. Instead, there were **assemblies** where people gathered to discuss matters related to war and peace. Leaders were chosen from these assemblies, often based on their bravery and skill as warriors.

Words To Describe People

The Rigveda provides insights into how people were described and categorized in that society, often based on their work, language, place of origin, family, community, and cultural practices.

Two main groups are described based on their work:

• Priests (sometimes called brahmins): Responsible for performing various rituals and sacrifices.
• Rajas: Leaders or rulers. It's important to note that these Rigvedic rajas were different from later kings. They did not have fixed capital cities, elaborate palaces, large standing armies, or systems for collecting taxes. Leadership was not necessarily hereditary; sons did not automatically succeed their fathers as rajas.

Two words were used to refer to the entire group of people or the community:

• Jana: A term still used in modern Hindi and other languages.
• Vish: The word 'vaishya', associated with certain occupational groups later, is derived from 'vish'.

Specific vish or jana groups are mentioned by name, such as the Puru jana/vish, the Bharata jana/vish, and the Yadu jana/vish.

The people who composed the Rigveda hymns identified themselves as **Aryas**. They referred to their opponents or those different from them as Dasas or Dasyus. These were people who reportedly did not perform sacrifices and likely spoke different languages. Over time, the term 'dasa' (and its feminine form 'dasi') came to mean **slave**. Slaves were often women and men captured in war and treated as the property of their owners, compelled to perform any work assigned to them.

While the Rigveda provides information about the society in the northwest subcontinent around 3500 years ago, parallel developments were occurring elsewhere, which can be explored through other types of evidence like burials.

Silent Sentinels—The Story Of The Megaliths

Approximately 3000 years ago, a practice of erecting large stone boulders, known as megaliths (literally meaning 'big stones'), began. These megaliths were carefully arranged and used to mark burial sites. The practice was widespread, found throughout the Deccan, south India, the northeast, and Kashmir.

Some megaliths are visible on the surface, but many burial sites marked by megaliths are underground. Archaeologists may find a circle of stone boulders or a single large standing stone on the surface, indicating a burial site beneath.

The process of creating megaliths involved several steps, which would include finding suitable stone, breaking boulders, shaping stones, transporting stones, digging pits in the earth, burying the dead, and finally placing stones in position.

Megalithic burials share common features:

• The dead were usually buried with distinctive pottery, often called Black and Red Ware.
• Also found were tools and weapons made of iron.
• Sometimes, skeletons of horses, horse equipment, and ornaments of stone and gold were included.

The use of iron in these burials is significant, as iron was not used in the earlier Harappan cities. This indicates a later technological development.

Some types of megaliths, called cists, are stone chambers built underground, sometimes featuring a porthole, which is a circular opening that may have served as an entrance to the burial chamber. These portholes are sometimes believed to have allowed bodies of family members who died later to be added to the same burial site.

Finding Out About Social Differences

Archaeologists use the objects found buried with skeletons in megalithic sites to infer information about the people who were buried, including potential social differences.

The presence of more objects, especially valuable ones, in one grave compared to others suggests variations in status among the buried individuals. For example, at Brahmagiri (Map 2, page 13), one skeleton was found with a large number of gold beads, stone beads, copper bangles, and a conch shell, while other skeletons had only a few pots. These findings indicate that some individuals were likely wealthier or held higher status (chiefs) compared to others (followers).

The practice of burying multiple skeletons, possibly from the same family, in the same megalithic site over time (sometimes using portholes to add later burials) suggests that certain burial spots might have been designated for particular families. The stone circles or boulders on the surface likely served as markers or 'signposts' to help people locate the burial site for subsequent burials of family members.

A Special Burial At Inamgaon

The archaeological site of Inamgaon (Map 2, page 13), located on the river Ghod (a tributary of the Bhima), was occupied between 3600 and 2700 years ago.

Findings at Inamgaon reveal aspects of their burial practices and social structure:

• Adults were generally buried in the ground, laid out straight with their head towards the north.
• Some burials took place within the houses.
• Vessels containing what was likely food and water were placed with the dead, suggesting beliefs about needs in the afterlife.

A particularly notable burial at Inamgaon involved a man found buried in a large, four-legged clay jar in the courtyard of a large, five-roomed house located in the center of the settlement. This house also included a granary. The body was placed in a cross-legged position. Given the central location, size of the house, presence of a granary, and the distinctive burial method, this individual was likely a person of importance, perhaps a chief, suggesting social hierarchy within the settlement.

What Skeletal Studies Tell Us

Studying human skeletons provides valuable information about the people of the past. While the skeleton of a child is easily identified by its size, distinguishing between the skeletons of a man and a woman requires more detailed analysis of the bone structure.

Archaeologists cannot definitively determine the sex of a skeleton solely based on the presence of objects like jewellery, as men also wore ornaments in the past. A more reliable method involves examining the bone structure itself. The hip or pelvic area of women is typically larger than that of men, an adaptation related to childbearing. These distinctions are based on modern skeletal studies.

Historical knowledge of the human body also existed. Around 2000 years ago, the renowned physician Charaka, in his medical text Charaka Samhita, stated that the human body has 360 bones. This number is higher than the approximately 200 bones recognized in modern anatomy. Charaka arrived at his count by including teeth, joints, and cartilage. This indicates a detailed, though different from modern science, method of studying human anatomy in ancient India.

Occupations At Inamgaon

Archaeological evidence from Inamgaon allows us to infer the occupations and economic activities of the people who lived there:

• Farming: The presence of seeds of various crops (wheat, barley, rice, pulses, millets, peas, sesame) indicates that agriculture was practiced.
• Herding: Bones of domesticated animals (cattle, buffalo, goat, sheep, dog, horse, ass, pig) show that animal rearing was an important activity.
• Hunting: Bones of wild animals (sambhar, spotted deer, blackbuck, antelope, hare, mongoose, birds) with cut marks suggest that hunting was also practiced as a source of food.
• Fishing and Gathering: The presence of bones of fish, crocodile, turtle, crab, and evidence of collecting fruits (ber, amla, jamun, dates, berries) indicate activities related to fishing and gathering wild food resources.

Thus, the people of Inamgaon engaged in a mixed economy involving farming, herding, hunting, fishing, and gathering.

Elsewhere

Looking at other ancient civilizations, around 3500 years ago in China, we find early evidence of writing on animal bones. These bones, known as oracle bones, were used for predicting the future. Kings would have scribes write questions (about battles, harvests, sons) on the bones, which were then heated in fire, causing them to crack. Fortunetellers would interpret these cracks to make predictions, sometimes making mistakes.

These Chinese kings lived in cities and palaces and accumulated vast wealth, including elaborate bronze vessels. Notably, at this time, they did not know the use of iron.

Comparing the Rigvedic 'rajas' with these Chinese kings reveals differences: Chinese kings had palaces, cities, accumulated vast wealth including bronze vessels, used writing on oracle bones, and likely had a more centralized form of rule compared to the Rigvedic leaders who lacked these features and systems for taxation or regular armies.

Imagine

This section prompts an imaginative exercise to describe the scene of a burial in Inamgaon 3000 years ago, including the preparation of food and offerings for the funeral, based on the information provided about burial practices and occupations at the site.

Let’s Recall

This section contains questions designed to facilitate recall of key terms and facts presented in the chapter.

Let’s Discuss

This section includes questions encouraging discussion, comparison, and critical thinking about the information presented in the chapter, such as comparing modern books with the Rigveda, interpreting evidence from burials about social differences, and contrasting the lives of different social groups mentioned.

Let’s Do

This section suggests practical activities to engage with the concepts discussed, such as finding craftspersons and languages, and listing individuals' work and language, relating the historical context to the present day.

Some Important Dates

This section provides a timeline of some significant dates mentioned in the chapter, helping to place the events and periods in chronological order:

• Beginning of the composition of the Vedas: about 3500 years ago.
• Beginning of the building of megaliths: about 3000 years ago.
• Settlement at Inamgaon: between 3600 and 2700 years ago.
• Charaka (famous physician): about 2000 years ago.