RIGVEDIC SOCIETY

RIGVEDIC SOCIETY

When the Aryans entered India there was already a class division in their tribal structure. Even in the earliest hymns, we read of kshatra (the nobility) and the vis (the ordinary tribesmen), and the records of several other early Indo­European peoples suggest that tribal aristocracy was a feature of Indo-European society even before the tribes migrated from their original home. As they settled among the darker aboriginals, the Aryans seem to have laid greater stress than before on purity of blood, and class divisions hardened, to exclude those dasas who had found a place on the fringe of Aryan society, and those Aryans who had intermarried with the dasas and adopted their ways. Both these groups were low on the social scale. The term varna was used for colour, the Aryans being fair, the dasyus dark.
The priests, whose sacrificial lore became more and more complicated, gradually arrogated higher privileges to themselves. Together with the chiefs, they acquired a larger share of the booty, thus growing at the expense of the common people. Social inequalities thus grew.

The dasas conquered by the Aryans were treated as slaves or shudras. Gradually, the tribal society got divided into three groups­warriors, priests and commoners. Later the fourth-shudra­was added towards the end of the Rigvedic period. This four-fold division was given religious sanction as evident from the Purushsukta hymn which many scholars contend, however, to be a later interpolation. In this hymn, the four classes are said to have emanated from the dismembered primeval man who was sacrificed by the gods at the beginning of the world-brahmin from the mouth, kshatriya from the arms, vaisya from the thighsl and shudra from the feet.

Family was the basic unit of society. A group of related families formed a grama, a term which later regularly meant 'village' but which in the Rigveda usually refers to a group of kinsfolk rather than to a settlement. The family was staunchly patrilineal and patriarchal. The wife, though she enjoyed a respectable position, was definitely subordinate to her husband. In the Rigveda, no desire is expressed for daughters, though the desire for children and cattle appears repeatedly. We have an instance of five women who composed hymns. Marriage was usually monogamous and indissoluble, for there is no reference to divorce. But there are certain indications of polyandry, levirate and widow­marriage. There are no examples of child-marriage, and the marriageable age in the Rigveda seems to have been 16 to 17.

Divisions based on occupations had started, but this division was not very sharp. Gifts of cattle, chariots, horses, slaves, etc. were given, but there were no gifts of land and even those of cereals were rare. Kinship was the basis of social structure. People's primary loyalty was to the tribe (jana). The term for family (kula) rarely occurs in the Rigveda. It included not only mother, father, sons, slaves, etc. but many more people also. Probably, the term for family was griha. Differentiation in family relationships leading to the setting up of separate households had not proceeded far.

Unequal distribution of the spoils of war created social inequalities, and this helped the rise of princes and priests at the cost of the common people.
The Aryans were a wild, turbulent people and had few of the taboos prevalent in later India. They were much addicted to inebriating drinks, of which they had at least two, soma and sura. Soma was drunk at sacrifices and its use was sanctified by religion. Sura was purely secular and more potent, and was disapproved by the priestly poets. The Aryans loved music, and played the flute, lute and harp, to the accompaniment of cymbal and drums; they used a heptatonic scale. There are references to singing and dancing, and to dancing girls. People also delighted in gambling. They enjoyed chariot races. Their dress consisted of two garments covering the upper and lower parts of the body. Both men and women wore ornaments.