History of modern day India

In the previous post , we saw the various developments during the Vedic age. This post, although a small deviation from following the timeline, is to look at what the Vedas have to say and also about the caste system. All the ancient Hindu texts are classified as Shruti and Smriti at a high level. Shruti translates to “what is heard”, these texts are the ones that have been passed generation over generation by the great sages of Hinduism and are author-less i.e. a single person is not associated with their creation. These holy texts lay down all the principles or Dharma that are to be followed in Hinduism.  The Vedas fall under Shruti along with the Upanishads , which are considered the branches of Vedas. Upanishads are also known as Vedanta, which translates to the end of Veda, meaning they are the conclusion (anta) and the goal of the Veda. There are 108 Upanishads which are divided among the four Vedas. For further details on Upanishads, I wo...

Introduction In the previous post  we saw that with the arrival of nomadic Aryans, India moved into the Vedic Period. This is considered to be the time between 1750-500 B.C.E. when the Aryans started to settle around the Indus valley and the plains around Ganga. The history of this period is linked to the Vedas, which are the oldest scriptures of the Sanathana Dharma or Hinduism. The Vedas are classified into four parts, Rigveda, Atharvaveda, Yajurveda, and Samaveda. A look into what each of these Vedas convey is for another post. There are various unanswered questions on the origin of Vedas. Did the Aryans bring the knowledge of Vedas when they entered India? Did they compose it after interaction with the Dravidians? Was this common knowledge in Dravidian culture and Aryans were mere translators, penning it down in Sanskrit? The four Vedas ...