TRACING VEDIC DIALECTS - People.fas.harvard.edu

If the preceding identifications are correct, they can now be further
built on: The level preceding PGW, that is the copper hoard culture, now
frequently found together with Ochre Coloured Pottery, (OCP), then
should correspond, if indeed Vedic, with a still earlier level of Vedic: I
think this is the one of the Mantra period: of the AV, and YV Mantras.
Notably, these texts are the first which mention iron at all: AV 11.3.7,
9.5.4 first speaks of the "black metal". 350 The date of the introduction of
iron thus correponds, again, with the relative chronology of the Vedic
texts.
The historical facts, as gleaned from the texts, agree: The earliest
centre of political power was in the West, in Kurukṣetra itself. Ever
since the late RV, it has been the "holy land" of the Brahmins. This is the
place where even the gods usually sacrifice (devayajana), and for a good
reason: here is the 'centre of Heaven and the Earth' 351 , and the political
centre (at Āsandīvant 352 ) of the Bharata/Kuru tribe 353 which dominated
the late Ṛgvedic and post-Ṛgvedic period. 354
In short, if the comparisons made above are correct, we arrive at the
following table:
______________________________________________________________
|
W E S T C E N T R E | E A S T
_________________________________________|_____________________
1750- OCP: Ocre coloured/ |
350 See author, E.Iran and the AV, Persica X. - Therefore, I cannot agree with W. Rau when
he says, Altertumskunde, p. 19, that the beginning of the Vedic period might perhaps be
suppressed below the date of 1000 B.C. The introduction of iron alone (which is not yet
mentioned in RV!) but appears in India already in the 12th cent. B.C. and fittingly, also in
the second oldest Vedic text, the AV, is too early for the date proposed by W.Rau (even if a
late redaction of AV is taken into account).
351 JUB 4.26.12, and the unpubl. VādhPiS, see BEI 2, p.223, with ann. 74
352 Note the meaning of this geographical term 'having a/the throne'
353 For details, cf. my article on the Kuru Realm, forthc.
354 Some further speculation may be added, if the other copper hoard cultures in the South
are taken into account: Do they represent the earliest forerays of IA speakers (or of tribes
closely related to them in culture not in language!), which petered out, without much effect?
Only after the consolidation of IA culture in the Kuru-Pañcāla area, did the spread
southwards start again, as ŚB 2.3.22 asserts: Naḍa Naiṣadha (sic) is said to carry Yama
(death) (further) South, day by day. Cf., however, the Aśoka edicts in Pkt. in S. Karṇātaka:
whom does he want to address there in Pkt.in this area? Note that he uses Greek in a Greek
area (Kandahar).
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