Aryans Peoples History

Around 1500 BC, groups of warlike people left their homes in central Asia, perhaps in the vicinity of the Caucasus mountains, and came to India. These people called themselves Arya (or noble kinsmen). They are now known as Aryans. Aryans are said to have entered India through the fabled Khyber Pass, around 1500 BC. They mixed with the local population, and assimilated themselves into the social framework. They adopted the standard agricultural lifestyle of their predecessors, and established small farming communities communities across the state of Punjab. When the Aryans arrived in India, they found people with an advanced civilization living there. These people called Dravidians, lived in cities and grew crops. Aryans eventually conquered the Dravidians and drove some of them south. Finally, the Aryans extended their domination over India, except the south.

Arias tend sheep, goats, cows and horses. They measured their wealth in herds of cattle. Over time, the Aryans settled in villages. Each village or group of villages led by a bully and advice. Aryans are believed to have brought with them the horse, developed sanskrit language and made significant inroads into the religious fold. All three factors were to play a crucial role in shaping Indian culture. Cavalry warfare facilitated the rapid spread of Aryan culture across northern India, and allowed the emergence of large empires. Sanskrit is the basis and the unifying factor in the vast majority of Indian languages.

Aryans were not a script, but they developed a rich tradition. They consist of hymns of the four VEDAS, the great philosophical poems that are the core of Hindu thought. As Nobel Prize winner, Rabindranath Tagore expressed it, "hymns are a poetic testament of a people's collective reaction to the wonder and awe of existence .... A nation of vigorous and unsophisticated imagination awakened by the dawn of civilization to a sense of inexhaustible mystery which is implicit in life. "

A solid lifestyle brought in its wake more complex forms of public and social patterns. This period was the evolution of the caste system, and the emergence of kingdoms and republics. The events described in the two great Indian epic, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata, is believed to have happened around this period. (From 1000 to 800 BC).

Aryans were divided into tribes that had settled in different areas of northwestern India. Tribal chiefmanship became hereditary, though the chief usually operated by means of advice from either a committee or the entire tribe. With job specialization, the internal division of the Aryan society evolved caste lines. Their social framework was composed mainly of the following groups: the Brahmana (priests), Kshatriya (warriors), Vaishya (corn growers) and Shudra (workers). It was early, a division of the business, and as such it was open and flexible. Much later, caste status and the corresponding occupation came to depend on birth, and switch from one caste or occupation to another became far more difficult.