Summary

The Vedic period is the period in the history of South Asia in which the Vedas originated. The Vedas were initially transmitted orally by the bards and priests of tribes that inhabited the northwestern part of the Indian Subcontinent at the beginning of the Vedic period and spoke Vedic Sanskrit, an Indo-Aryan language. Their culture was characterized by a strong importance of sacrificial rituals, a clear social hierarchy within the tribe and the use of Sanskrit in rites.

The Vedas constitute both the most important sources about the Indo-Aryans and their greatest cultural transaction, and they have a major influence on the religion and culture of India to this day. Although it is difficult to separate historical fact from mythology, the texts provide a clear picture of Vedic society and developments. The Indo-Aryans were possibly semi-nomadic pastoralists who had military superiority over the native population through the possession of horses and chariots. The Vedas give the impression of conflicts over cattle, both between Indo-Aryan tribes and with others. In this Samhita period, the emphasis was on the devas or gods to whom praises were dedicated from the Samhitas, the oldest parts of the Vedas. The three goals of Vedic life (trivarga) were dharma (standards), artha (wealth) and kama (pleasure).

Around 1000 B.C., Indo-Aryans settled in permanent settlements to practice agriculture and thus a transition from a semi-nomadic warrior society to an agricultural society took place. The focus shifted from the Samhitas to the Brahmanas with the brahmanic ritual sacrifices (yajnas) by which the gods could be kept in check. Thus the brahmanas gained more power over the kshattriyas, the warriors and rulers, incidentally without usurping worldly power. During this period, the Indian caste system developed.

Vedic culture spread further eastward across the Ganges Plain and southward to Malwa and Gujarat during this period. Cities arose particularly in the Ganges Plain, around which the first proto-states, the janapadas, emerged in the later Vedic period around 700-500 BCE. This transition from an agricultural society to a more urban society was accompanied by social and religious changes. The Brahmins could find only a limited response to this. Thus emerged a mystical countermovement of world renunciation in search of the inner self and redemption from this cycle. By the way, this did not mean a complete transition. Outside the urban areas where the new uncertainties played no role, there remained a need for the old forms. This could create tensions between the urban elite and the rural population. Thus arose the more philosophically inclined Upanishads. From this time on, samsara, karma and moksa were central concepts in Indian philosophy and religion. The expansion of the goals of life to include moksa turned the trivarga into the caturvarga or purusartha. Study of the Vedas led to the birth of Indian philosophy and ancient Indian science.

During the classical period, criticism grew against the secret rituals involving sacrifices and the Vedas were rejected by skeptical, but mostly materialistic movements. These became the naysayers or nastikas, charvaka, Buddhism and Jainism. All this resulted in a brahmanist backlash in which the criticism of the nastikas was countered by the astikas, the six darsanas, nyaya, vaisheshika, samkhya, yoga, mimamsa and vedanta, making this a rich philosophical period.

Population composition

The population composition of India is a controversial subject. First, colonial racism influenced historiography by Western scholars who assumed Western superiority and eventually the subject was even hijacked by National Socialism. It also has a political dimension in India influenced by Hindu nationalism that assumes indigenous Aryans, the out-of-India theory.

The compilers of the Rigveda called themselves arya, which indicates kinship, but also has a cultural and religious meaning and has been translated as noble or noble. After Western scientists discovered Sanskrit in the late 18th century, this language was named after arya as an Indo-Aryan language and its speakers as Indo-Aryans. It thus began as a linguistic term, but would not remain so.

The similarities between Sanskrit and European languages were investigated using the comparative method which revealed that there was an overarching language family, Indo-European. It was thought that these languages had an original mother tongue, which must be Proto-Indo-European (PIE). It was thought that there must then be an area where this PIE originated. This Urheimat, the Proto-Indo-European homeland, was initially sought partly on the basis of the Vedas in India and on the basis of the Vendidad in Iran. Dozens of hypotheses soon followed, seeking the homeland in different areas of Asia and Europe.

Although it was a prehistoric subject, it took a century before archaeology also became involved in the search for the homeland of PIE. Karl Penka arrived at the Scandinavian hypothesis in 1883. The use of archaeology did not shrink the search area, and so a century and a half after the search began, South India, Central India, North India, Tibet, Bactria, Iran, the Aral Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Black Sea, Lithuania, the Caucasus the Urals, the Volga Mountains, southern Russia, the steppes of Central Asia, Asia Minor, Anatolia, Scandinavia, Finland, Sweden, the Baltic Sea, Western Europe, Northern Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe and even the North Pole mentioned as the homeland of the Indo-Aryans. :37

At the same time, language was increasingly linked to race. Lazarus Geiger in 1878 saw Germany as the homeland and stated that Indo-Europeans had blond hair and blue eyes. The idea of an Aryan race then gained wide acceptance and even became an important part of National Socialism. It would not be until World War II that this race theory was discredited. The search for a supposed Aryan race, however, yielded nothing.

With the discovery of the Indus civilization in the 1920s, Mortimer Wheeler saw that migration as an invasion in which the Indo-Aryans ended the Indus civilization. In 1963, based on linguistic paleontology, ethnology, mythology and archaeology, Marija Gimbutas arrived at the Koergan hypothesis, also called steppetheory. This situated the homeland in the Pontic Steppe and saw the Indo-Aryans as nomadic pastoralists who conquered other areas through military invasions. However, there appeared little evidence of a violent invasion that might have brought the Indus civilization to an end.

New disciplines such as archaeogenetics and population genetics made it possible to study migrations in a different way. However, this also gives varying results. Some of the studies endorse the possibility of an Indo-Aryan migration, while others contradict it. Studies based on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) have found no evidence of an Indo-Aryan migration that would have occurred around 1500 BCE. However, by combining the mtDNA data from the female line with data from the Y chromosomal DNA from the male line, there did appear to be indications of migration from Central Asia, probably in several waves. Here there was a clear gender difference, it was mostly males who migrated. The resulting picture is not a simple model in which a migration at the beginning of the Neolithic brought agriculture, followed millennia later by Indo-Aryans, but complex migrations since the Last Glacial Maximum from the northwest and more recent smaller migrations from the east.

Some influence of the Jamna culture has been found among the Vedic people. Members of this culture are thought to have migrated first toward Eastern Europe after which a portion entered northern India in the second millennium BCE, probably via Central Asia. This steppe influence is limited to the Ancestral North Indians (ANI), among the Ancestral South Indians (ASI) it is negligible. There is also mainly male influence which is strongly represented among the Brahmin and Bhumihar. Newcomers who are a numerical minority may initiate language change or even language substitution with the original inhabitants without much change in material culture, so changes are virtually absent from the recovered archaeological culture.

Chronology

For the oldest parts of these, a rough chronology of 1200-1000 B.C. or 1500-1000 B.C. is usually taken, but estimates on this vary. An initial framework is provided by Vedic Sanskrit, an Indo-Aryan language. It was possibly preceded by the reconstructed languages Proto-Indo-Iranian and Proto-Indo-European (PIE). The dating of PIE also limits the dating of Vedic Sanskrit. In addition to the language, the contents of the Vedas and later Hindu scriptures have been used to arrive at a chronology. Max Müller was the first and arrived at 1200-1000 B.C. for the oldest parts of the Vedas, the chandas. Much can be said against Müller's methodology, which he himself pointed out. Müller therefore saw the years mainly as an upper limit and also saw 3000 B.C. as possible. Nevertheless, his results are still frequently maintained, since several methods arrive at this figure. Astronomical interpretations have also been used for dating, but these also vary widely. Texts from outside India have also been used, which may have the advantage that their chronology is better known, such as the chronology of the Near East. The Bogazköy archive from ancient Hattusa containing a treaty from the fourteenth century BCE is an example. Parallels between the Rigveda and the Iranian Avesta do not bring the solution any closer. The problem with dating the Vedas also means that due caution must be exercised in reconstructing the history of South Asia. Therefore, the period of the Vedic era is not a fixed one.:185

Vedic sources and literature as a historical source

The events of the early Vedic period must be reconstructed using a combination of archaeological finds and much later recorded written sources such as the Vedas, which also had several recensions (shakhas). Archaeology gives a clear sequence of cultures and technological developments during this period. Some of these developments can also be gleaned from the Vedic sources. However, it becomes problematic when attempts are made to relate the tribes, wars and endless genealogical lists described in Vedic literature to archaeological findings.:401 Vedic sources were not compiled with the aim of representing history as truthfully as possible. Both the bards and priests who passed on the tradition orally and the scribes who eventually recorded it in writing had other purposes, such as providing a king or tribe with a prestigious lineage, or spreading religious ideas. Although certain fragments must almost certainly contain historical truth and certain kings are probably based on historical persons, it is impossible to establish a reliable chronology from the written sources alone:184-185

The four Vedas were handed down only orally for a millennium and took their final form around 500 B.C.:158 Although clues to Vedic culture and social development have been found in all these writings, they do not contain an integral vision of the past, in the form of a complete cosmology or mythology. Vedic mythology derives mainly from the Puranas and the two great epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. These sources, too, were not recorded in writing until around 500 B.C.182 and bear the marks of intensive reworking. There are hundreds of Puranas, each consisting of thousands of verses, of which 18 works (the mahapuranas) are considered the most important. First, they contain prescriptions for worship of, sacrifice to and praise of various deities. Other writings are commentaries on the Vedas, narratives about the deities' actions and descriptions of the afterlife.

The genealogies contain nearly one hundred generations and must therefore be partly fictional. They also include characters from the Mahabharata and Ramayana. An important turning point is the Bharata War, which is central to the Mahabharata. After the end of the war, the present and final era of the cosmos, the Kali Yuga, begins. The genealogical sequences stop at the kings of the beginning of the historical period, around 500 B.C., when the Puranas are believed to have been recorded. The heroes of the Mahabharata, who descended from the lunar dynasty, were the ancestors of the Kurus, according to these sequences.

The Mahabharata and the Ramayana must have been first written down around 350 B.C., but the core of the Mahabharata is believed to be older. The epic recounts the strife for kingship over the Kurus between the Pandavas and the Kauravas. The former are the five sons of Pandu, a prince who could not become king himself because of a curse. The Kauravas are their cousins, the 100 sons of the blind king Dhritarashtra. The story line is much interrupted by ethical-didactic discourses, most of which are assumed to be later interpolations, as in the Bhagavad Gita. In the Mahabharata, tribal and family ties are central. The epic gives the impression of a nostalgic look back to an earlier time, when such values were important. In particular, the ending, in which the Pandavas cannot derive any real joy from victory and eventually withdraw from worldly existence, has a melancholy tone.:409-411

The Ramayana is much shorter than the Mahabharata and is set further east, in the central Ganges Plain and the Vindhya Hills. Although references to places all over India occur in the epic, these are almost certainly later interpolations. The many parallels with the Jataka stories of the Buddhist tradition, for example, indicate that the Ramayana was composed of various fragments of earlier narratives.:415 Unlike the Mahabharata, the Ramayana is set in a society centered on kingship. The main character, Rama, is the heir to the throne of the city of Ayodhya, but is exiled to the wilderness with his wife Sita. Sita is kidnapped by the demon king Ravana, but with the help of the monkey king Hanuman, Rama manages to defeat the demon king and free his wife. However, Sita must prove her innocence (virginity) before the victors return to Ayodhya, where Rama ascends the throne. His heroism and justice are seen as examples of ideal Hindu kingship.

Geography

Each book or mandala of the Rigveda-Samhita has its own pattern of hymns, and from deviations from that pattern it is possible to deduce what later additions are. These may well have been composed earlier, as vice versa, which will have been the choice of the final compilers of the written versions. Those versions differed with the different families of brahmanas. From these, different vedic schools (charanas) formed, each with its own shakha with the Yajoerveda having by far the most shakha, although most of them have not survived. With that, for many shakhas a region can be identified in which it dominated. Thus, the expansion of the area of the Indo-Aryans can be traced where the oldest texts of the early-Vedic period originated in the Punjab, after which a movement eastward can be observed to the area of the Kurus and Panchala at the time of the middle-Vedic period and Koshala and Videha in the late-Vedic period. The Taittiriya and Jaiminiya had their origins in Panchala, but gained great influence to the south.

There is evidence in the Vedas that, especially in areas further east in the Ganges Plain, native tribes became part of the arya. For example, many names of kings in those areas end in -dasa. The Vedas show that initially the inhabitants of these areas were looked down upon by the tribes of the Punjab and the Yamuna-Gangesdoab, who called their area Aryavarta (land of the arya). Later, however, in the time of the first states, this distinction disappeared and the roles were even reversed. Aryavarta then began to cover territory further east.

There is a historical background behind some names or narratives, because in some cases archaeological excavations have confirmed a narrative. In the Mahabharata, for example, Hastinapura is the capital of the Kauravas. The city was located on the doab between the Ganga and Yamuna rivers and, according to a narrative, was destroyed by a great flood. This is supported archaeologically by traces of a great flood that must have taken place around 800 B.C. It is estimated that the city was destroyed by a great flood. Based on this, it is estimated that if the Bharata War is based on a historical conflict, it must have occurred around 950-900 B.C.:411

The geography of the Rigveda is limited to the northwestern part of the subcontinent: in addition to the present-day Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, it includes the sapta-sindhu, the area of the seven rivers: the Indus and its five tributaries, along with the later dried-up Sarasvati. This area was where the Indo-Aryans must have initially settled and where they must have first made the transition from a semi-nomadic existence to permanent habitation and agriculture.:49 The other three Vedas also mention areas further east in the Ganges Plain. This shows that aryanization spread eastward over time; the eastern areas were simply not yet known when the Rigveda was recorded. The Yamuna further east is mentioned only a few times in the Rigveda.

In the Brahmanas and Upanishads created between 900 and 600 BCE, the focus shifted to the doab between the Yamuna and the Ganges.

The Indus civilization or Harappa culture was more advanced than the Vedic culture in many aspects. Harappa culture is characterized by large, tightly planned cities, such as Mohenjodaro and Harappa. The Harappans traded by ship with the Arabian Peninsula and Mesopotamia, had oxen and elephants as pack animals, and used carts to transport goods. They had developed their own writing and practiced sedentary agriculture. Large areas had been cultivated to provide food for the inhabitants of the cities. The peak of Harappa culture fell between 2600 and 1900 BCE.

The idea that the cities were destroyed by hordes of Indo-Aryan invaders is no longer considered plausible. Although, based on archaeological evidence, attacks by looters on a small scale are possible, the decline of the Harappa civilization was due to a combination of factors, such as climate change and epidemics.:47 In some ruins, archaeologists have discovered a late Harappa phase (1900-1750 B.C.) in which urban organization disappeared and there were probably far fewer inhabitants, but other typical features of the Harappa culture can still be found. The Vedas do not contain any reference to an urban society or typical things from the Harappa culture. Therefore, it is assumed that there must have been at least a few centuries between the decline of the Harappa culture and the emergence of the Vedas. On this basis, it is estimated that the Rigveda arose between 1500 and 1200 B.C.:47

The last phase of the Harappa civilization includes the Cemetery H culture, found in the ruins of Harappa, among others. Remarkably, the culture is very different from older layers in the city. One possible explanation is that it represents the migration of the first Indo-Aryans. The newcomers could have settled in the cities around 1900 BCE and gradually merged into the Harappa civilization. When the later Vedic Indo-Aryans entered the subcontinent, they may have encountered there the descendants of their distant relatives, who still possessed some remnants of their original culture. This may perhaps explain why the dasa from the Vedas are also called mlecchas (persons who mispronounce Sanskrit) and were sometimes associated with the dasa. Some archaeologists believe that the Cemetery H culture arose from the Gandhara burial culture and reflects the migration of the arya to the east.

Known from archaeology after the decline of the Harappa civilization is the ochre coloured pottery culture (OCP). This culture includes finds scattered over northern India of bronze or copper utensils and weapons such as axes, harpoon points and swords, combined with ochre-colored pottery of much poorer quality than that from the Harappa culture. The age of many finds is uncertain, but some must be from the early second millennium. The OCP is sometimes considered a period of decline following the Harappa culture, but the evidence for a connection with the Harappa culture is meager.:374

The ochre colored pottery culture was succeeded by the painted gray ware culture (PGW), which was accompanied by the introduction of iron worked in a primitive manner. Some overlap of finds from the two cultures in the Punjab indicates that the PGW began even before 1000 B.C.:375 The ceramics of the PGW were made on potter's wheels and were painted with geometric patterns and floral motifs. The PGW spread throughout the Punjab, the Yamuna-Gangesdoab, the western Ganges Plain and parts of present-day Rajasthan.:198 The PGW corresponds to the area where, according to Vedic literature, the Kurus lived. The Kurus play a central role in the later parts of the Rigveda and the epic the Mahabharata. From the same period, black-and-red pottery (BRW) is found over a wider area in northern and central India. Given its wide distribution in both space and time, this is not a single archaeological culture, but this pottery is associated with the Yadavas, tribes that had settled in the area southwest of the Kurus. The spread of the BRW south to the area called Avanti in the Vedas, present-day Malwa, and the PGW to the Ganges Plain to the east could then represent the spread of Vedic culture.

One problem is that the earliest Vedic sources do not include craftsmen such as potters, blacksmiths or bakers. Indeed, these crafts play no role among groups of semi-nomadic pastoralists. Once the arya chose a permanent livelihood, they encountered potters among the natives. These were considered unclean because their work involved contact with the elements. Possibly the aversion that the arya felt to certain crafts unknown to them was part-cause of the creation of the caste system. However this may be, the ceramics from archaeological finds can hardly be attributed to Indo-Aryans. It probably shows a continuous development of an indigenous tradition. But because artisans were also assimilated into the Vedic culture, finds from the PWG and BRW may well provide clues as to how Vedic culture spread across northern India.:42-43

The Rigveda recounts the fortunes of some six generations of 50 tribes (jana) in the Punjab belonging to five nations (possibly pancha-janah), the Yadu, Turvasha, Anu, Druhyu and Puru. However, the first four are barely mentioned and the main role is given to the Puru-related Bharata who had arrived in the Punjab shortly before. The tribes were semi-nomadic pastoralists who raised cattle and cultivated barley (yava), among other things. The wandering tribes had frequent skirmishes with each other, including those resulting from poaching for cattle. The hallucinogenic drink soma was said to make them immortal in the process. Important gods were Agni, Indra and Varuna.

The Battle of the Ten Kings on the River Ravi plays an important role in the Rigveda. The Bharata under Sudas managed to win this battle against an alliance of ten other tribes. The victory was said to be due to the invocation of the gods Indra and Varuna and the offerings (yajna) made to them, although the gods were also invoked by dasà, indicating some form of acculturation. Sudas' important position thereafter would be evidenced by the extensive ashvamedha (horse sacrifice) he held.

The Bharata then dominated the other tribes, but in doing so probably made efforts to get on more friendly terms, which may have led to later versions of the Rigveda not only containing hymns of the Bharata. The Bharata would then have moved eastward toward the Yamuna. At the end of the Rigveda, the Kurus from sacred land Kurukshetra come into the picture. They would unite the 50 tribes into a single super-tribe.:262-264

Social organization

The arya of the early vedic period were divided into tribes (jana). The tribe consisted of several groups of families moving together, the grama. Interestingly, the meaning of the word grama changed after the change to sedentary agriculture: although it initially implied a nomadic group of families, in later vedic sources it was used for a village. A distinction was made between lower status (vish) and higher status (rajanya) families.:51

In the Rigveda, the leaders of tribes are called raja, which means king in modern Indo-Aryan languages. Probably for early Vedic times this word is better translated as tribal chief.:187 Supported by the most important members of the rajanyas, the tribal chief was responsible for defense and attacks on other tribes, the main purpose of which was to capture more cattle. Gau means cow and it was common as an infix, showing that property and prestige were measured in cattle. Thus the word for war in Sanskrit (gavishti) literally means to acquire cows.:62 Other words used for battle were gaveshana, goshu and gavya. Both the tribal chief and the god Indra were sometimes referred to as gopati, lord of cattle, while gojit means winner of cows and stood for a hero. A rich person was a gomat, an owner of cows. It was already stated that cows should not be killed (aghnya), but to what extent this was a foreshadowing of the sacred cow is not clear.:187, 189, 191 The tribal chief's prestige depended on his success in warfare, as well as in the successful completion of sacrificial rituals (bali).

The tribe met regularly, in part to perform these sacrificial rituals. The ritvij or priests recited the thousands of hymns and precepts from the Vedas. They played an indispensable role in the performance of the ritual. A successfully performed sacrifice was believed to favor the gods and bring prestige and prosperity to the tribe and chief. Bali additionally represented the tribute the chief received, not only from his own tribesmen, but also from subjugated tribes. There were several types of gatherings, with the sabha probably taking place in smaller, more elite circles, while the samita involved a larger group and possibly also played a role in the redistribution of resources. The vidatha seems to have had a more religious significance. The tribute was probably not just an economic exchange, but a prestation total tied to social conventions that perpetuated interrelationships through the assumed reciprocity:188, 190

Society was strongly patriarchally organized, but in the early Vedic period women had a higher status and greater freedom than was the case later. Women were expected to play a role in Vedic sacrificial rituals and had the right to address the tribal assembly (vidatha). Daughters, like sons, were taught the wisdom of the Vedas. Unmarried women were permitted to search independently for a suitable marriage partner, and marriages were rare. Marriages between different classes were not uncommon. Widows were normally expected to remarry and the custom of widow burning (sati) probably originated much later.:52-53 Nevertheless, sons were held in higher esteem than daughters because only a son could perform the cremation rites after the death of the parents. The Vedas also contain texts that portray women as unreliable and inferior. In the later Brahmanas, women were associated with evil. The position of women declined markedly during the Vedic period.

Slaves were also kept, later referred to as dasa or dasi, suggesting an ethnic element. The epithets used for dasa's and dasyu's suggest that they were not always outwardly different, but there were cultural differences. The word varna occurs frequently in the Rigveda, usually in the sense of light-colored, but does not yet have the later meaning of caste or varna. Brahmana and kshatriya are not yet mentioned together with varna in the Rigveda. Hymn 3.44-45 also suggests that birth does not determine later position:191-192

Justice took place on the basis of wergeld, with sentencing depending on the social status of the injured person.:62

Mythology and religion

The religion as it emerges from the Rigveda differs considerably from the later forms. The religion has many similarities with the Iranian Avesta. The Rigveda divides the universe into heaven (dyu), earth (prithvi) and the intermediate world (antariksha) and has several origin myths. For example, the world is said to have been created as the result of a cosmic struggle, of the separation of heaven and earth and by actions of the gods. Opposed to this chaos is the universal order or rta, the moral order to which humans must conform.

The Rigveda states that there are 33 gods, although more are addressed. In each hymn with an invocation toward a god, it is invoked as the supreme god. Thus, although there is henotheism or cathenotheism within each hymn, in the Rigveda as a whole there is no pantheon with a hierarchy of gods. This polytheism is supplemented by celestial beings (gandharvas), celestial nymphs apsaras, blood-drinking demons (rakshasas), pain-causing demons (yatudhanas) and man-eating demons (pishachas). The names of the demons may have previously been the names of other tribes.

The gods central to the Rigveda were associated with the forces of nature, as might be expected in semi-nomadic peoples. These anthropomorphic gods are still worshipped even in contemporary Hinduism, but have been reduced to secondary roles in it. The most important Vedic god was Indra, a war god who destroyed the dasa and their settlements with his lightning bolt and chariot, as well as the dragon Vritra. Agni is a fire god who helped clear the jungle and oversaw the fire sacrifice. Agni also has little patience with the dasa whose establishments he burned down. Possibly this gives insight into how the arya waged war. Other important gods were Surya, the sun god, and Varuna, the divine judge who hung out a lot with Mitra. The latter two are among the eight aditya, sons of Aditi, an important goddess. The most important goddess is Ushas, the eternally young goddess of dawn, but apart from her, goddesses play only a minor role in the Rigveda.:195-198

The ritual of sacrifice (yajna) was the time when the tribe gathered at the yajamana, the pater familias of a tribe, to obtain the benevolence of the gods. Usually the fire sacrifices consisted of milk, ghee or grain, but animal sacrifices also occurred. The most important of these was the ashvamedha, the horse sacrifice. The required scope of the rituals involved was such that it was reserved only for the most powerful chiefs. While reciting the accompanying formulas, the sacrifices were thrown into the fire, symbolizing consumption by the gods. This involved asking for such earthly things as long life for the yajamana, wealth, sons, cattle and victories in battle. Human sacrifice (purushamedha) is also mentioned in the Rigveda, but of this it is not certain if it was ever actually performed. In addition to being consumed by the gods, some was also eaten by the priests, which, according to the later Shatapatha-Brahmana 13.6.2, would be the reason human sacrifices were not performed, since humans are not allowed to eat humans.

Sex, physical competition, gambling and the consumption of soma, a stimulant drink that probably induced hallucinations, all played a role in the rituals.:48 The rituals could only be led by the priests or ritvij, seven types of whom are mentioned in the Rigveda, the hotri, adhvaryu, agnidh, maitravaruna, potri, neshtri and brahmana.

Participation required first undergoing a purification ritual, but also depended on one's position within the social hierarchy. The Vedic precepts are extremely detailed. An offering could be successful only if the priest pronounced the hymns and spells correctly, the participants were clean and other detailed requirements were met, such as the orientation of the altar or the way the offering was dissected.

Both burials and cremations occurred, and the Rigveda mentions the afterlife. Also mentioned are asu as a force and manas as a spirit that would survive death, but there was no mention of samsara, the cycle of death and rebirth, in the Rigveda.

A late hymn from the Rigveda is the keśin hymn (RV.10.136). The keśin were long-haired muni, wandering sages who brought themselves to ecstasy (unmadita) as also happens in shamanism. Interestingly, this hymn does not recount sacrifices, rituals and tapas. The muni were probably ascetics who had taken a vow of silence. They would hang out with the evil Rudra with whom they drink poison (viṣā) that would be lethal to others. However, the shamanic elements are still limited in the Rigveda.

Pastoralism and sedentary farming

That the arya did not originally farm or build houses is well inferred from the fact that words for such things as plow, mortar, grain or rice do not have an Indo-European root. These words had apparently been adopted from indigenous, Dravidian languages. This does lead to the conclusion that agriculture played a relatively minor role and was primarily practiced by indigenous people.:140 No remains of buildings or settlements have also been found by archaeologists that can be attributed to arya.

It may be objected that the Rigveda does mention sowing (vap), cultivating (krish), plow (langala and sira), plowshare (phala), plow furrow (sita), heel (khanitra), sickle (datra, srinin) and axe (parashu, kulisha). Leveling a tilled field (kshetra) and fertile soil (urvara) are also mentioned. Kshetrapati is lord of the lands and Indra was also seen as protector of crops and winner of fertile lands (urvarajit). Yava stands for barley or grain in general and dhanya for grain.

The transition to sedentary agriculture will have been forced primarily by India's hot and wet climate. Unlike the arid plains of Central Asia, the Indian Subcontinent has a rainy season, during which residents are virtually forced to stay in the same place temporarily. Techniques of agriculture and crafts associated with it could be copied from the indigenous inhabitants who were incorporated into the Vedic culture.

Deforestation, according to Ram Sharan Sharma, would have been facilitated when bronze and copper tools gave way to iron, a development that took place around 1200-1100 BCE. In the Rigveda, however, the use is not yet clear. Ayas occurs in various meanings and may have meant bronze, copper or metal in general.:190 Also, Amalananda Ghosh and Niharranjan Ray countered that deforestation was also possible with the long-established form of land cultivation by burning down impassable wilderness. Furthermore, there is no archaeological evidence for deforestation, which was not initiated until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This led Makkhan Lal to argue that the influence of iron on deforestation and the creation of agricultural surpluses is a myth:253-254

The Kurus entered into an alliance with the Panchala from the eastern central Madhyadesha, which became the most important area with Kurukshetra and thus became the first state of the Vedic era.:24

With the migration eastward, the arya came into contact with other peoples, and the interaction with other languages contributed to the emergence of Indo-Aryan dialects that increasingly diverged from the oral tradition of the Vedas. The interaction meant that, on the one hand, the Indo-Aryans experienced an indianization and the indigenous peoples (for which nishada may initially have been a generic term) experienced an arianization and, on a linguistic level, a sanskritization. Sanskritization enabled upward social mobility of indigenous peoples under Indo-Aryan rule. Pastoralism remained and was supplemented by the extensive cultivation of rice (vrihi) in addition to the cultivation of barley (yava) and wheat (godhuma). It is the Atharvaveda of the mantra period in which the first unambiguous reference to iron is found.:263

Kuru Reformation

The Kurus initiated a reformation from the Rigvedic rituals to the śrauta rituals, which stimulated the further development and canonization of the Vedas. How this process occurred is unclear, as there is a gap between the Rigveda and the Maitrayani-Samhita and Katha-Samhita, the earliest works of the Yajoerveda, the Veda of mantras. It is clear, however, that during this period the number of priests decreased from seven to four. Each priest contributed sacrifices, which is the ultimate reason the other three Vedas came into being. Thus the Rigveda was recited by the hotar or roper, the Samaveda by the udgatar or singer, the Yajoerveda by the adhvaryu or celebrant and the Atharvaveda by the brahman or chief priest. As the rituals kept the power of the gods in check, the importance of the priests also increased, especially that of the udgatar, where especially the hotar of the ancient Rigveda lost some of his influence.:266-268

Whereas the other works were mainly there for the priests, the content of the Atharvaveda most reflected the concerns of the common people with spells to acquire prosperity, children and health.:210

The Yajoerveda-Samhita shows that the brahmins and the kshatriyas (the ruler and warrior class, of kshatra, administration, power) increasingly formed a front against the vaishyas, shudras and dasa to exploit them, as the brahmins themselves wrote. Thus strict varnas were formed from existing social classes and social stratification increased greatly. These changes proved to be of great importance, and some of them have remained significant into modern times.

Around this time, society was semi-sedentary. There is archaeological evidence in the painted grey ware culture of some small centers, mainly marketplaces. These are not found in the Vedas, possibly because it was not the Brahmins who were engaged in trade, but the natives. Specialization began to occur during this period, with woodworkers, blacksmiths and charioteers. The craft of chariot maker (rathakara) was so important that they were even allowed to participate in rituals, something otherwise reserved only for twice-born people. Rituals took on an increasingly important place in relation to sacrifices, and these rituals were detailed in the Brahmanas. Since this praxis was partly at the expense of the underlying religion, it has been suggested that there was more orthopraxy than orthodoxy.:260 The Brahmanas also contain observational astronomy and geometry. For example, the Shatapatha-Brahmana contains calculations of π and an introduction to the Pythagorean theorem. The changes in rituals were possibly initiated by the transition from a semi-nomadic warrior society to an agrarian society.

The more or less friendly Kuru-Panchala alliance ended when the Salva invaded Kurukshetra, after which Madhyadesha of the Panchala became the center of the Vedas. The name Panchala suggests that it was composed of five (pancha) tribes, but there were six. According to the Shatapatha-Brahmana, Panchala was the later name of the Krivi already mentioned in the Rigveda. Four others are possibly Turvasu, Keshin, Srinjaya and Somaka. The Panchala developed the black Yajoerveda with several sub-schools of the shakha Taittiriya. The western peoples of the Punjab were therefore looked down upon, seen as outsiders (bahika).

During this period, settlements were established not only more along the rivers but also inland. South of the Yamuna, the Matsya and the Satvanta thus came within the sphere of influence of the Panchala.

The eastern areas of Koshala and Videha went through their own development that has been archaeologically found back as the black and red ware culture and the ochre colored pottery culture that westward had earlier been replaced by the painted gray ware culture. In Koshala and Videha, the white Yajoerveda developed and did not practice fire sacrifice. Consequently, they were seen as outsiders in the west and Brahmins were not supposed to migrate to these areas. It is likely that these were Indo-Aryan tribes who had previously migrated eastward under pressure from the Bharata and Kuru. The later so important Magadha is hardly mentioned in the Vedas, while the Vrijji and Malla had not yet migrated eastward.

The Ganges Plain offered a new environment. Unlike the relatively dry northwest of the subcontinent, this marshy lowland was still covered with dense jungle at that time. The Satapatha-Brahmana, a text that must have originated between 800-600 B.C., possibly describes fire farming when the god Agni makes a path of fire from west to east through the Ganges plain, preparing the land for human use.

Arianization was less advanced in the east than in the west, and besides the Indo-Aryans, the indigenous Munda and some Tibeto-Birmans lived here. Whereas other areas had a more monarchical form, this was less pervasive in the east and a more tribal oligarchy, the gana-sangha, occurred here. Of the tribes that formed the Vrijji confederation, the Videha were possibly the only ones to implement sanskritization.

The Videha promoted arianization by giving native peoples ancestors from the time of the Rigveda. For example, the Aitareya-Brahmana included the Pulinda and Mutiba sons being made of Vishvamitra, one of the purohitas from the long-forgotten times of the Battle of the Ten Kings. The Shatapatha-Brahmana has a founding myth in which King Videgha Mathava is accompanied by Gautama Rahugana on his trek to Videha. Arriving at the Gandaki River, Mathava is said to have been ordered by Agni to carry him across. In the area on the other side of the river, his descendants would later rule Videha.:49-50 However, these were all attempts to link the local rulers with the Rigveda and thus raise their status and legitimize authority. For example, Gautama Rahugana was a purohita from the much earlier time of the Rigveda. This gave Janaka of Videha the opportunity to invite brahmins from the west to his debates (brahmodyas) and to introduce orthopraxy from the west. This was not the shankha from nearby Panchala, but those from western Kuru, the enemies of their enemies (prati-pratirajan). The zeal to perform the śrauta rituals well and adopt the works completely made the Shatapatha-Brahmana the most complete Brahmana. Thus the East became the most important center of Vedic culture. The large number of works of different shakhas brought from other areas quite often conflicted with each other. This brought with it a need for once again canonization and it was during this period that the concept of śruti was first used and rishis were assigned to specific Vedas. Probably from this time, therefore, works were referred to as smṛti.:295-297, 303-305, 309-316, 329-331

Brahmins preferred the countryside and cities (nagara) are therefore hardly mentioned in the Vedas, but at the end of Vedic times the second urbanization took place. Around this time, tribal areas (janapadas) were merged into small states (mahajanapadas). All this was accompanied by further stratification. The new ideas that emerged in these processes were expressed in the Upanishads.:332-335

Culture

The three main features of the culture of the arya formed in the latter period:

Emergence of cities

The shift to a sedentary existence had major social consequences. The greater amount of food and resources such an existence entailed meant that larger numbers could live together in the same settlement. Within these larger settlements, inhabitants could specialize in certain tasks or crafts, which in turn resulted in a more complicated social hierarchy. Not tribal or family relationships, but the place of residence were central to the identity of such a settlement. In the later texts among the Brahmanas, these areas belonging to a particular tribe are called janapadas (jana meaning tribe and pada meaning foot - freely translated the area under the feet of a tribe):51

Especially in the fertile Ganges Plain, the harvest was so rich that eventually settlements the size of cities could develop, the second urbanization after the earlier Harappa culture. In cities, craftsmen and priests were better able to devote themselves to their traditional roles than had been the case earlier. Crafts, religion, philosophy, art and science flourished. Important was the advent of Brahmin writing, possibly in the 6th or 5th century BCE, so that texts and ideas were henceforth recorded rather than passed on orally.

Around 1000 BCE, the northwest and the Ganges-Yamunadoab still formed Aryavarta, the center of Vedic culture. Makkhan Lal estimated the population size in the Ganges-Yamunadoab to be about 52,000 during the OCP phase, 163,000 during the PGW phase, 426,000 during the NBPW phase and 900,000 during the four centuries around the beginning of the era.:229

Later, the central and eastern Ganges plains took over the role as the center of Vedic culture.:50 The drier Avanti and present-day Rajasthan lagged behind these areas. The Yadavas living there continued to lead a semi-nomadic pastoral existence even in the later Vedic period.

Mythology, religion and philosophy

The religion of the early Vedic period was based on a belief in the power of the arya and their gods. However, this belief gave way to growing uncertainty and skepticism after the shift to a sedentary society with greater inequality due to specialization. The rites and magic of the Vedas and Brahmins could not remove this uncertainty. In the final mandala of the Rigveda and in the Upanishads, for example, the existence and power of the gods and the magic of the brahmin sacrificial rites are openly doubted. In other societies, in similar circumstances, religions arose that offered a justice for suffering in the afterlife. The brahmins could find only a limited response to this. Thus, with this urbanization and individualization came a mystical counter-movement of world renunciation in search of the inner self and redemption from this cycle. The Upanishads brought an important revolution in religious thinking about what happens after death. From this time on, samsara, karma and moksa became central concepts in Indian philosophy and religion. Karma, the idea that one's actions have consequences not only for the present life, but also in subsequent lives, may have originated in an indigenous tradition from Greater Magadha.

Several Dharma sutras warn against the bad influence of the city and advise brahmins to stay away from it. Against the conservative village brahmins, however, there seems to be urban brahmins contributing to a shift from the ritual to the spiritual. The Aranyakas and Upanishads created around 750-500 BCE describe the mystical philosophy of individual enlightenment. The ascetic mystics who adhered to these texts withdrew from society to gain religious insights and attain salvation (moksha or nirvana) in seclusion through meditation, self-immolation or fasting. Central are the concepts of the individual soul (atman) and the divine (brahman), to which the soul is connected. The mystics preferred a personal spiritual quest rather than the brahmin sacrificial cult:48-49 They often sought seclusion in the forest: the name Aranyaka means texts from the forest.

Thus Vedic sacrificial religion transformed itself, where sacrifice and obtaining sons was no longer the path to salvation, but where atman and brahman played a central role.

Evolution of governance, varna and households

The power and status of a tribe in a sedentary society no longer depended on the amount of livestock owned. Leadership transcended tribal and family relationships, and successful leaders no longer ruled a tribe or group of families, and a leader's power was measured by the amount of land he controlled.:166 This was the basis for the emergence of the first states between 800 and 500 B.C.:50

The kshatriya, the families of the most powerful leaders, along with the brahmins, formed an upper social class in sedentary society. In a nomadic existence, the status of the tribal leader rested on successful raids, capturing livestock from other tribes. With a sedentary existence, leaders derived their status more from the successful performance of sacrificial rituals, which only brahmins were capable of.:164 As a result, brahmins became more powerful and the priesthood became hereditary. The rest of the population, arya of lower status as well as non-arya, had the task of meeting the needs of the upper class. From the lower status (vish) tribes emerged the vaishya caste, composed of farmers and traders. Still lower were the shudra and dasa. The dasa appear in the Vedas as adversaries who were subdued by the arya. The texts describe them as vile, unattractive and uncivilized people with dark complexions and flat noses, who were considered fit only to work the land in the service of Vaishna. Nevertheless, since dasa were also captured in conflicts with other groups of arya, dasa may not refer to an ethnic group but was the collective name for slaves captured in war.:51

Power within a janapada was in the hands of the leading kshattriya families (rajanyas) who assisted the leader (raja) in governance. The leading families received tribute from the farmers and traders (vaishyas). At the end of Vedic times, the first kingdoms developed from this system, with a monarch at the head. The monarch was usually elected by the tribal council (samiti), with whom he had to share power in decision-making. In other janapadas, the raja was merely a war chief or the most important member of the council. There were also janapadas that had no leader or king at all and were governed by the council of family heads itself. In terms of power structure, these gana-sanghas were a kind of aristocratic republics,:43 although Witzel argued that they were certainly not republics, but more like tribal oligarchies.:313

An important ritual was the aswamedha, the horse sacrifice. The horse symbolized strength, virility and the power of the tribal leader. The description of the aswamedha ritual includes a passage in which the chief's wife has sexual intercourse with the sacrificial horse, which symbolized the chief's virility. Later, this custom does not seem to have been observed. Instead, the horse was let loose, after which the area through which it passed had to be claimed by the tribe. If this already belonged to another tribe, it had to be subdued. Only after all the land was actually confiscated did the sacrifice itself take place. This shows how the perception of leadership changed after the seminomadic had been exchanged for a sedentary existence.

The kingship was ritually affirmed by sacrificial rituals based on the Vedas and described in the Brahmanas, which reaffirmed the importance of the brahmans, especially the purohita. During the homage, the raja's divine authority was conferred by the rajasuya ritual that was repeated annually.:44 According to the Shatapatha-Brahmana, the raja associated himself with a Prajapati through these rituals. Part of the rituals included jewel sacrifice (ratnahavimshi) and chariot races (vajapeya). However, the raja of this period was not the same as that at the time of the Rigveda. Thus, there was a shift from an elected successor to hereditary succession. The vajapeya ritual in earlier times may have determined who became raja, in later times the chariot race will have been more ceremonial with a winner known in advance. Similarly, the bali received by the raja will have become increasingly obligatory and acted as a tribute.

Monarchy, varnas and household changes (grha) developed in tandem. Whereas initially monarchy was only one of the possible forms of government, it became the norm in the classical period. Just as the authority of the raja was confirmed with rituals, so was the authority of the head of the household (grhastha or grhapati). With all the social changes, the status of the head of the family also changed. The latter occupied an important place with the panca mahayajna, the five great sacrifices. Now the preference shifted to a celibate lifestyle, which was not without controversy. In response, the asrama system emerged, in which different lifestyles are seen as equal. The importance of becoming a family head made marriage or vivaha one of the most important rituals or samskara.

Arya society was always based on patrilineal descent. This manifested itself, among other things, in the worship of the pitris (fathers), the spirits of the ancestors. Polygyny was therefore more common than polyandry. In the Rigveda, Vishpala is possibly a female warrior, but increasingly the position of women was then seen in relation to men. On the one hand, the Vedas extol the woman, but in other places her place is never more than that of the shudra and submissive to the man. Later texts also have a menstrual taboo.:204-206

Mahajanapadas

At the end of Vedic times, two important political developments took place. First, through conquest or amalgamation of alliances of tribes, the janapadas had become larger and larger. These larger tribal alliances are called mahajanapadas. For example, in the case of the kingdom of Panchala in the central Ganges plain, the name indicates its origin in an alliance of five tribes (panch means five). Later Vedic sources mention sixteen mahajanapadas, which were spread in a band across the northern subcontinent in the 6th and 5th centuries BCE. Some important empires were Gandhara with its capital Taxila in the northwest (today in northern Pakistan), and Koshala and Magadha further east of the Ganges Plain. The capital of Koshala, Ayodhya, is where the Ramayana is set. The easternmost of the mahajanapadas was the kingdom of Anga in the Ganges Delta.

A second, parallel development was that the king's position took on a religious nature and thus became more inviolable. The monarch was held responsible for maintaining the cosmological order and fertility of the land. King and Brahmins formed the upper class in late Vedic society and were mutually dependent on each other to maintain their dominant position. In kingdoms such as Magadha or Koshala, kingship was basically hereditary. However, the leader often came to power as a result of a power struggle within the main families. For his legitimacy, he depended on the brahmins, who were rewarded by the kings with patronage, land and goods. As part of the seizure of power, the king was required to make ritual visits to the most important family heads before he could take the throne. The common people, however, had no say and were merely witnesses to the rajasuya from which the ruler derived his power.:44

States governed by a council of leaders (gana-sanghas) were on the wane around 500 B.C., although such oligarchies continued to occur well beyond the Vedic period: the Licchhavis in the eastern Ganges Plain and present-day Nepal are a well-known example.

Origin of Buddhism and Jainism

In the 6th and 5th centuries BCE, a religious movement against Brahmanism developed out of the mystics and ascetics of the Upanishads and Aryankas. This sramana movement or sramanism rejected the rigid caste system, the sacrificial cult and the dominant role of brahmins in the practice of religion. A number of new religions emerged from the movement that began to compete with the brahminical priests. Chief exponents of the movement were Gautama Buddha, the founder of Buddhism, and Mahavira, the founder of Jainism. Both preached an essentially atheistic, ascetic philosophy, which was established and disseminated by communities of monks.

As historical sources, the Buddhist and Jainist writings provide the first clear overview of the political situation in northern India. The Buddha himself is therefore considered to be the first historical person in Indian history. Moreover, the events mentioned can often be substantiated by passages from later Vedic sources such as the Puranas or the Mahabharata.

The first empires

Thanks to Buddhist texts, much more is known about the political events of the 6th and 5th centuries BCE than about earlier developments. Events took place during the Buddha's lifetime that set the stage for the creation of the first empires - states that became so large through territorial expansion that their influence transcended their own region. This is seen as the end of the Vedic and beginning of the classical (imperialist) period. It is known from Buddhist writings that at the end of the 6th century BCE, a king named Bimbisara was in power in the kingdom of Magadha south of the Ganges. Bimbisara received the Buddha personally several times and later converted to Buddhism. Koshala also waged an area-based war against smaller realms in the north, including Shakya, where the Buddha came from. Through marriage, Koshala and Magadha were united.

Bimbisara's successors followed an expansionist policy and used new war machines such as catapults and armored chariots. Within half a century, territory from Anga in the east to Avanti in the southwest was united under the same ruler. Magadha had become the first empire in Indian history. A shocking event for the Brahmins was around 380 B.C. the seizure of power by Mahapadma Nanda, the founder of the short-lived Nanda dynasty. Mahapadma was a low-born shudra and his kingship was seen by the brahmins as a bad omen and a consequence of the beginning of the Kali Yuga, the era of moral decay. However, the power of the kshatriyas had been broken and the Vedic world order was no longer followed. Mahapadma is sometimes considered the first Indian emperor. He conquered all of northern India and even more distant territories such as Kalinga on the east coast of the Indian Peninsula.

The vast empire of the Nandas could only be kept under control and protected from invasion by a large standing army, which could be deployed at any time. The cost of doing this made it necessary to continually conquer new territories to accumulate booty. The expansionist power policy that was necessary for this was described in the Arthashastra. Kautalya lived in the 4th century BCE and has been called the Indian Machiavelli. The Nanda dynasty was succeeded around 320 BCE by the Maurya dynasty, which ruled an even larger area.:59

Sources

1. Vedic period
2. Vedische tijd
3. De associatie van Cemetery H met Indo-Ariërs werd vooral bepleit door Parpola (1998)
4. Cultivatie is een vroege stap in de domesticatie van planten en kon de aanzet tot landbouw zijn
5. Mâthava, the Videgha, was at that time on the (river) Sarasvatî. He (Agni) thence went burning along this earth towards the east; and Gotama Râhûgana and the Videgha Mâthava followed after him as he was burning along. He burnt over (dried up) all these rivers. Now that (river), which is called 'Sadânîrâ,' flows from the northern (Himâlaya) mountain: that one he did not burn over. That one the Brâhmans did not cross in former times, thinking, 'it has not been burnt over by Agni Vaisvânara.' Now-a-days, however, there are many Brâhmans to the east of it. At that time it (the land east of the Sadânîrâ) was very uncultivated, very marshy, because it had not been tasted by Agni Vaisvânara. Satapatha-Brahmana (1:4:1:14-15)
6. ^ McClish & Olivelle 2012, p. xxiv: "Although the Vedas are essentially liturgical documents and increasingly mystical reflections on Vedic ritual, they are sufficiently rich and extensive to give us some understanding of what life was like at the time. The earliest of the Vedas, the Ṛgveda Saṃhitā, contains 1,028 hymns, some of which may be as old as 1500 BCE. Because the Vedic texts are the primary way in which we can understand the period between the fall of the IVC (ca 1700) and the second wave of urbanization (600 BCE), we call the intervening era of South Asian history the 'Vedic Period.'"
7. ^ Rita Banerji (2008), Sex and Power, Penguin UK: "The Vedic patriarchal culture was defined by an extremely aggressive need to establish a social order that catered to male sexuality, both on earth and in the heavens—among humans and also among the gods." Alphonso Lingis (2018), The Alphonso Lingis Reader, University of Minnesota Press: "Patriarchal culture entered Siam late, through the royal family, which, though to this day Buddhist, in the late Sukhothai period—as Angkor long before it—imported brahminical priests and, with them, Vedic patriarchal culture." Chitrabhanu Sen (1978), A Dictionary of the Vedic Rituals: Based on the Śrauta and Gṛhya Sūtras, Concept Publishing Company: "But the most important transformation that occurred in the patriarchal Vedic society is the exclusion of women from the sacrifices."
8. Rita Banerji (2008), Sex and Power, Penguin UK: "The Vedic patriarchal culture was defined by an extremely aggressive need to establish a social order that catered to male sexuality, both on earth and in the heavens—among humans and also among the gods."
9. Янковская Н. Б. Ашшур, Митанни, Аррапхэ./История Древнего мира. Ранняя Древность.- М.:Знание, 1983 — с.174-197
10. The teaching of the Rishi(s) is a living thing that enables the species to realize its role at various stages of its evolution. It can only be transmitted by initiation through qualified individuals. -- The Sacred Books von Alain Danielou. Usenet Post
11. The new Sâmkhya sometimes replaces the word Agama (tradition) by the word Veda (from the root vid, knowledge) to represent permanent information (akshara), the plan that is at the basis of all aspects of creation, the object of all research, all science, all metaphysics, all true knowledge. -- Alain Danielou, w.o.
12. Tony Nader: Human physiology: Expression of Veda and Vedic literature. Modern science and ancient Vedic science discover the fabrics of immortality in human physiology. Vlodrop, Holland, 2000. ISBN 81-7523-017-7
13. Postmodernism, Hindu nationalism and 'Vedic science' (Memento vom 22. September 2012 im Internet Archive)