show that the Aryans had at least begun to push as far to the south and east as this territory.
Thus the land of the five rivers was the earliest home of the Aryan settlers in India, and it would seem that the settlers in the Panjab gradually formed themselves into five tribes or nations, especially as the "five lands," "five cultivating tribes," and "five peoples" are frequently mentioned in the Rig-Veda.
We now turn to the interesting and pleasing subject of the social and domestic manners and the home life of these five tribes of the Panjab. The first thing that strikes us here is the absence of those unhealthy rules and restrictions, those marked distinctions between man and man and between class and class, which form the most unpleasant feature of later Hindu society. We have already seen that the sturdy Hindus of the Vedic Period recognized no restrictions against the use of beef, and that they referred with pride to their merchants' going to sea. We have seen, too, that the Rishis did not form a separate and exclusive class and did not pass their lives apart from the world in penance and contemplation. On the contrary, the Rishis were practical men of the world who owned large herds of cattle, cultivated fields, fought against the aboriginal enemies in time of war, and prayed to their gods for wealth and cattle, for victory in war, and for blessings on their wives and children. Every father of a family was, in fact, a Rishi on a small scale, and worshipped his gods in his own house in his own fashion, while the women of the family joined in the worship and helped
