The Veda
23
or priestly writers of the Veda are entirely preoccu-
pied with their own interests; if we want anything
like secular records of India we must look to a later
time.
We do not even know exactly what a term as fam-
iliar as rāja (rēx) "King," meant in those early days.
Was a Raja a great potentate, or merely a tribal
chieftain ? We know that the early Vedic period
was a cattle-raising age. The lowing of kine was
lovely music to the ear of the Vedic poet. But
there were also workers in metals, chariots, navi-
gation of some kind, gold, jewels, and trade. This
is all too vague, and to some extent introduces
uncertain quantities into our estimation of Vedic
religion.
At an unknown date then, as we have had to
confess reluctantly, Aryan tribes or clans (viç¹) began
to migrate om the Iranian highlands to the north
of the Hindu-Kush Mountains into the north-west
of India, the plains of the river Indus and its tribu-
taries, the Panjab, or the land of the five streams."
From this word is derived vaiçya, the later name of the third, or
agricultural and merchant caste.
- Professor E. W. Hopkins, Journal of the American Oriental
Society, vol. xix., pp. 19-28, argues that the majority of the Vedic
hymns were composed farther east than the Panjab, in the region.
of the modern city of Amballa, between the rivers Sarasouti and
Ghuggar.
