Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.27

c14.27

We shall see that an examination of the material culture of the composers of the *Rigveda*, as extracted from the allusions in the text, is entirely compatible with what we know of conditions at this time from archaeological evidence from other regions of early Indo-European colonization around the edges of the old city civilizations in Asia and the Aegean. I think we are justified in accepting the *Rigveda*, on archaeological grounds, as a genuine document of the period, preserved intact by the constant fear of the consequences if the magic word were altered by a hairsbreadth. An epic can be altered, brought up to date, recast and adapted to suit the changing tastes in heroic literature - the Indian epics, the *Mahābhārata* and the *Rāmāyaṇa*, are notable examples of this, their extant forms going back no further than the first few centuries A.D. In a religious text there is no need to delete an anachronism or explain an act whose significance is forgotten. Meaning is of less account than the precise sequence of words and phrases. We do not ourselves worry unduly about the meaning of archaic phrases in the Book of Psalms or even in Hymns Ancient and Modern.