Chronicon
Menu
Historical Period
ENGR

The hymns of the Vedas, the Ganges kingdoms and the birth of India's religious order.

Use the timeline below to navigate through major events and milestones.

Vedic Period · c. 1500–600 BC
The Age of the Vedas

The Vedic Period

From the coming of Indo-Aryan peoples and the hymns of the Rigveda, through the spread of iron and settled farming across the Ganges plain and the shaping of the social order of varna, to the philosophical fire of the Upanishads and the rise of the first kingdoms and cities. Slide across a thousand years, remembered in an oral literature of astonishing power, in which the enduring framework of Indian religion and society was forged.

1500 BC
The Early Vedic Age
1 / 7

1500 BC

The Early Vedic Age
  • Religious

    The coming of the Vedas

    A manuscript of the Rigveda
    Via Wikimedia Commons

    Indo-Aryan peoples spread into north-west India, bringing the Sanskrit hymns that became the Rigveda.

7 milestones

Meanwhile

Around 1500 BC

Full Chronicle

The Vedic Period

From the coming of Indo-Aryan peoples and the hymns of the Rigveda, through the spread of iron and settled farming across the Ganges plain and the shaping of the social order of varna, to the philosophical fire of the Upanishads and the rise of the first kingdoms and cities. Slide across a thousand years, remembered in an oral literature of astonishing power, in which the enduring framework of Indian religion and society was forged.

  1. The Early Vedic Age

    • The coming of the Vedas

      Indo-Aryan peoples spread into north-west India, bringing the Sanskrit hymns that became the Rigveda.

  2. The Early Vedic Age

    • The world of the Rigveda

      The hymns reveal a world of cattle-herding clans, warrior chiefs and gods of fire, storm and dawn.

  3. The Later Vedic Age

    • Iron and the Ganges

      Armed with iron, the Vedic peoples clear the forests of the Ganges plain and settle to farming.

  4. The Later Vedic Age

    • Kings, priests and sacrifice

      In the Kuru-Panchala realm, elaborate rituals and a powerful priesthood bind kingship to the sacred.

  5. The Later Vedic Age

    • The order of varna

      Society is ordered into the four varnas — priests, warriors, producers and servants — the root of the caste system.

  6. The Upanishads

    • The philosophy of the Upanishads

      Forest sages turn from ritual to inner truth, teaching of the self, karma and release in the Upanishads.

  7. Toward the Kingdoms

    • Kingdoms and cities rise

      As the Vedic age closes, the plain fills with rival kingdoms and a new wave of cities and trade.