Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c14.34

c14.34

The *Rigveda* hymns reflect the aspirations and life of members of the upper classes of a society which, in common with other Indo-European communities, was formally divided into a threefold grading of warriors, priests, and artisans – *Kṣatriyas*, *Brahmans*, and *Vaiśyas*, comparable with the *milites*, *flamines*, and *quirites* of Roman society or the *equites*, *druides*, and *plebes* of the Celts of Gaul as recorded by Caesar in the first century B.C. But it is important to realize that the concept of caste, as known in later literature, is quite unknown in the *Rigveda*. The tripartite arrangement is perhaps an obvious enough division of responsibilities within a community, but its formal recognition is characteristically Indo-European. The hymns are composed by the priests on their own behalf and on that of the warriors, their patrons, and are addressed mainly to a group of anthropomorphic deities, or to the deified sacrificial liquid, soma, round the cult of which the whole group of hymns is really centred.