CREL 1206 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Dravidian People, Fire Worship, Vedas
11 Jan 2017
School
Department
Course
Professor
Indus Valley Civilization (IVC)
- 2500-1500 BCE
- Not Hindu religion
o Proto-Hinduism
- Not clear on what they practiced.
o No translations made
o Lots of artefacts though
- Dravidian people?
o Known group
o Agrarian people
- Advanced urban centres in the Indus Valley
o Fortified, elaborate plumbing & irrigation, paved right-angle streets
- Aryan Invasion Theory
o 18th – 19th cent.
o Authors of the Vedas?
o Vedas very agrarian
o Lighter skinned people from north, mixed with civilization, Aryans responsible for
writing the Vedas?
o Alexander the Great brought cross-pollination
o Vedas written in Sanskrit
o Linguists: Latin, Greek & Sanskrit
o Vedic religion and Zoroastrianism?
▪ Close to Hindu religions
▪ Vedic – fire worship (sacrifices, etc)
▪ Zoroastrian – fire as well
o Aryan (in Sanskrit) = noble person
▪ Speak Sanskrit
▪ Upper class
▪ Practice Vedic rituals
o Recently, no research to support this theory
▪ Highly contested
▪ Probably no light-skinned invaders
▪ Not as accepted now as ten years ago
- Vedas written by agro-pastoral people
o As compared to the urban Indus Valley Civilization
o Written approximately 1500 BCE (end of IVC)
o Indus script has not been deciphered
- Cultural similarities
o Betwee IVC & Hiduis
- Figures on pottery and seals
o Trees (peepul tree?)
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