The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology c9.s7.7

c9.s7.7

Vedic polity, Vedic thought, or Vedic culture is not the work of a generation or two but covers at least a millennium. The terms of language and categories of thought as well as the contents of categories, i.e., the meanings of terms were getting transformed from generation to generation along with the military exploits of the *viṣ* (folk) groups as well as the territorial and socio-economic expansion of the diverse races or tribes. An aspect of all these expansions was to be seen in the fusion between the colonizers (Aryans) and aboriginals (Dasyus) in the earliest period of the *Rig Veda*. Even during the epochs when *pancha janāh* referred to "five tribes or races" and not to the complex of four castes *plus* Niṣāda the friendly relations²³ are known to have been established with the Non-Aryans (both cultural and racial), among other things, through inter-marriage perhaps for military reasons.