Indische Palaographie von circa 350 a. Chr. – circa 1300 p. Chr. c47.s1.8.2

c47.s1.8.2

Tribe was constantly at war with tribe, and in their slow onward progress there had been no signs of combined general effort. It is true that after they had been some time in the plains larger aggregates were occasionally formed by military Chiefs, but they were unstable and perpetually being dispersed and re-formed in the vicissitudes of tribal contests. The stable element, then, in the colonisation, was not supplied by the Court and its army, but by the village. This community seems to have been an institution of very early date amongst the Vedic tribes, and was established upon a clan, or even a family, basis, cemented by the possession of a definite tract of pasture or arable land. The opportunity for forming detached and independent settlements of this kind was favourable. Land was plentiful, and whilst the supply of menial labour was provided by the Dasyus retained in subjection upon the soil of which they had been dispossessed, the danger of reprisal by the rest was removed as the more adventurous bodies of the Āryas extended their frontier further and further into the interior. The necessity of combination for mutual defence against the alien waned therefore into insignificance.