The Vedic Age and the Coming of Iron c. 1500-700 BC

Contents: Preface. I. Early Vedic phase, c. 1500-1000 BC: 1. The Rigveda. 2. Antecedents and region of settlements. 3. Economy. 4. Society and polity. 5. Aryas and Dasyus and Dasas: the emergence of Four Varnas. 6. Religion. 7. Other aspects of culture. II. Late Vedic Society, c. 1000-700 BC: 1. The Vedic corpus after the Rigveda; the Avesta. 2. Political history. 3. Economy. 4. Society. 5. Religion. 6. Other aspects of culture. III. India, 1500-700 BC: The archaeological evidence: 1. Archaeological cultures of the Aryan zone. 2. Peninsular India. 3. The coming of Iron. Index.

"The Vedic Age completes the first set of three monographs in the People's History of India series. It deals with the period c. 1500 to c. 700 BC, during which it sets the Rigveda and the subsequent Vedic corpus. It explores aspects of geography, migrations, technology, economy, society, religion, and philosophy. It draws on these texts to reconstruct the life of the ordinary people, with special attention paid to class as well as gender. In a separate chapter, the major regional cultures as revealed by archaeological evidence are carefully described. Much space is devoted to the coming of iron, for the dawn of the iron age--though not the iron age itself--lay within the period this volume studies. There are special notes on historical geography, the caste system (whose beginnings lay in this period) and the question of epic archaeology. A special feature of this monograph is the inclusion of seven substantive extracts from sources, which should give the reader a taste of what these texts are like.

As in the first two monographs, the authors seek to present updated information with clarity of exposition and reasoned analysis. Both the general reader and the student should, therefore, find here much that is interesting and thought-provoking."