Addendum: The Indian Republics and the Rise of the Warrior Class 1300–300 BC
The Vedic culture created a soldier class without using money
Dear Reader,
When I read that Alexander the Great invaded or at least tried to invade India and conquer the Republics, I was too excited about the crossover! Let me digress a little bit and explore what happened to the region before Alexander arrived.
What led to the rise of the warrior society and soldier class in India?
It still is camping season over here. I’m excited to venture out again.
Ferragosto,
Melanie
When Indian Republics were similar to Greek/Roman Republics (and not)
There is a big jump from the fall of the Harappan civilisation in 1300 BC to Alexander’s attempt to conquer India in 327 BC. By the time he arrived, the Indian republics were established warrior societies. But was this a professional soldier class?
How did it happen?
Graeber has previously established that human cultures are characterised by binary opposites. Religion and anti-religion, promiscuity and anti-promiscuity, and the list goes on. It is unsurprising that during the Harappan civilisation, we also find small groups outside its walls. And these groups are its opposite — mobile, pastoral, and hunter-gatherers. More importantly, they carry a different set of belief and value systems.
These groups exist at the peripheries of larger civilisations. Contemporaneously. Think of them as the rebels in waiting.
A horticultural community: the precursors of the warrior society?
One hypothesis that has been established is an eastward migration or diffusion of Indo-Aryans originating from the Persian region using linguistic data. It was written in ancient Sanskrit that they come from a mythical homeland of Airyanǝm Vaēǰō. At least as written in the Veda or the sacred books. These would later form the corpus of Hinduism. This group is marked in archaeology through their grey ware pottery.
Grey Ware was found across a wide group settlement pattern east of what was the Indus Valley River plain. After the Harappan collapse, the Ganges-Jamuna became the important centre of habitation.
The archaeological finds point to a mixed subsistence economy. According to B.B. Lal, some of the finds indicate:
a combined horticultural and seasonal agriculture practice with the cultivation of two-crops: rice in the summer and wheat in the winter
animal husbandry combined with hunting, fishing and gathering - a wide range of animals were kept including pigs, cows, goat, sheep, and even horses
cane and bamboo wood strenghtened by mud as the primary housing material; in other sites, we see brick walls
simple pottery fired on ovens operated with bellows
These evidence point to a rather farming and rural based community. However, a surprise would greet us in 2017 when an archaeological discovery would rewrite the region’s history.
A concurrent warrior society in Sinauli (2000 - 1500 BC)
Back in 2017 or 2018, a farmer found several copper pieces on his agricultural field in Sinauli, seventy kilometers from Delhi. What they found is a burial site with an astounding evidence of ‘warriors’ in the community (or at least competitive charioteers and perhaps a soldier class). The area of the Ganges-Jamuna River (Ganga-Yamuna Basin) has been under excavation since 2004 by the Archaeological Survey of India, but this site has yet to be explored.
The necropolis with eight burials are mixed - with primary, secondary, animal burials, and an elaborate warrior burial. It was not an exclusively elite area as far as we can see. The site is dated 1900 BC which makes it contemporaneous with the Late Harappan civilisation. Scholars believe that this is part of the copper minting culture.
We are interested here because of the evidence of horses and skilled soldiers who can wield their sword and chariots for warfare or possibly spectacular games. Or perhaps, a soldier who served elsewhere.
Aside from chariots, there is a shield and antenna sword found.
The shield also have an elaborately decorated frontispiece.
I highlight these because these artefacts change how we interpret what is happening in the region.
The second hypothesis now seem to support Graeber’s argument that both warrior and non-warrior groups co-exist and are contemporaneous. We do not need to rely on cultural diffusion hypothesis popular in early anthropology to interpret the spread of Vedic culture. Small farming communities and potentially warrior-based communities co-exist with larger stable civilisation like the Harappan.
Farmers and warriors constitute the different classes necessary for that society to function or evolve
There is a convergence of the mystical and symbolic (Vedas) with the current structure of the small mobile society that produce a hero/warrior figure
Though there was indicator of a ‘warrior’, there were no coinage found in the burial site; this indicates that perhaps if this person was a warrior:
he was not receiving payment through minted coins locally
a credit system might be in place that was culturally sanctioned
There is no use asking about the origin of the Indo-Aryan (unless it is for contemporary nationalist purposes and careful analysis must be done to avoid it). The answer is probably both the spread of Vedic culture and warrior class happened, an integration of knowledge and technologies from the east and west.
The convergence of technology and symbols
The Ganges-Jamuna river plains have been continuously occupied by all groups at different times. This includes living and apparently, burying their dead. Here, we see a confluence of types of burial and living arrangements that sit right next to each other that might even confuse analysis. Or even jump to conclusions.
What we do know is that the Vedic culture, not only had their pottery and skills that mark the archaeological record, but a set of beliefs that combine both material and the transcendent.
the multiple uses of the horse
Did the cart come before the horse (riding)? The horse is one of the most important animals that changed human history. Scholars posit that the horse was first used as a protein source and then to pull carts. But whichever came first, we know that horse back riding came much later because it required a deeper understanding of animal and human anatomy and potentially spotting and breeding horses for speed and agility.
We do know that riding horses began in the steppes of Kazakhstan and Russia around 3500 BC. This was later adopted in the Egyptian and Persian regions at about 2000 BC. It would seem to show that this technology was already well-known in the Indian subcontinent, before and survived after the Harappan fell. Once chariots fell into disuse, mounting horses became part of the cavalry later in human history.
Vedic belief system and the warrior caste
The warrior class, unlike its Greek counterpart, had its basis in the Vedic texts. This is the symbolic component needed to justify a specalist soldier class. The category of the Kshatriyas (warriors) is one of four social classification in the texts: the Brahmans (priests), the Vaisyas (merchants, traders and farmers) and the Sudras (servants or serfs).
The Vedic manuscripts were orally passed down and recorded in ancient Sanskrit around 1500 - 500 BC. These works contain elaborate rituals, ceremonial prescriptions, and a theosophy that was the basis of Vedic culture. It is unclear how old this system is prior to it being written.
Unlike the Greek example, the post-Harappan republics has a soldier class driven by a mystical religious precept. Interestingly, though they are excellent blacksmiths, there is no indication yet of a professional class paid to protect society.
When did the switch happen? How did the social class of the warrior move towards professionalisation?
Round-Up
I explored the period after the Harappan Civilisation in 1300 BC and ask, what happened during this period prior to Alexander the Great contemplating crossing the Indus River? Apparently, a lot.
The creation of smaller communities with mixed economies that hunted, fished, planted, and kept animals
They bred all types of domesticated menageries - pigs lived alongside cattle and also horses
They brought a specific set of belief system handed down orally until it was written down in ancient Sanskrit with the oldest about 1500 BC. These are the Vedic manuscripts and would form the elaborate Hindu belief and world order
The soldier class arose during this time period as a successor to the new ways of organising after the fall of the Harappa.
The Vedic scripture enshrined the soldier class along with other social positions including a servant class; everyone had their place, perhaps, such reliance on structure, order, and predictability countered the crumbling of a large stable urban centre that was the Harappa (alternatively, it fared as a contemporaneous counter-culture movement)
No evidence of coinage appeared with the warrior burials. It is unknown how soldiers were paid at the time but the Vedas also spoke about battles. It will not be evident until 300 BC, or thereabouts, that soldiers will be renumerated in cash to fight for empires. Therefore, Graeber’s thesis do not apply to the nascent period until much later.
We’ll explore how the switch happened next week.
Re-read the previous post