The Veda 2 3

woven-HWng anqw

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 aterm as fam- iliar as my}: (rev) “ 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 (wig; ’) began to migrate from the Iranian highlands to the north of the Hindu-Kush Mountains into the northwest of India, the plains of the river Indus and its tribu— taries, the Panjah, or the land of the five streams.’

'From this word is derived wirya, the later name of the third, or agricultural and merchant caste.

• Professor E. W. Hopkins, journal of the American Oriental

Sac'itfy, vol. stint.I pp. Iowzs. argues that the majority of the Vedic hymns were composed farther east than the Paujab, in the region of the modern city of Arabella, between the rivers Sarasouti and

Ghuggar.