Harappa, another major city, showed similarly advanced urban planning.Standard brick sizes matched those found at Mohenjo daro, linking the wider culture.Weights and measures were standardized, usually based on consistent ratios and units.This suggests regulated trade, taxation, or craft production across long distances.Seals carved with animals and script symbols turn up across the Indus region.Many were probably used to mark ownership or guarantee the contents of trade goods.Yet for all this order, the Indus civilization remains partly mysterious.Their script, carved on seals and small tablets, has not been convincingly deciphered.Without readable texts, we lack direct records of their rulers, laws, or myths.We do not know their language, state structure, or precise religious beliefs.Instead we rely on material remains like pottery, architecture, and figurines.Interpretations remain cautious, because visual clues alone can mislead.Their economy appears to have been diverse and interconnected.Archaeologists find evidence for agriculture based on wheat, barley, and later rice.People also cultivated cotton, which may have been woven into textiles for trade.Craftspeople worked copper, bronze, shell, stone, and possibly early glass like materials.Beads, ornaments, and pottery styles circulated across wide regions, showing market activity.There is also clear evidence of trade with Mesopotamia in West Asia.Mesopotamian texts mention a distant land called Meluhha, probably the Indus region.They speak of imports of timber, ivory, shell, semiprecious stones, and perhaps textiles.Indus seals have been found in Mesopotamian cities, confirming contact.This long distance exchange linked the Indus to wider Bronze Age networks.So the Indus cities were not isolated, but part of an interconnected Afro Eurasian world.This context helps explain their complexity and prosperity.Around nineteen hundred before the common era, this civilization began to change.Many large urban centers declined or were gradually abandoned.Rural settlements persisted, but the standardized urban system lost coherence.Scholars have proposed several overlapping explanations for this transformation.These include climate change, shifting river courses, and pressure on ecological resources.The breakup of long distance trade networks may also have undermined urban elites.One important environmental factor involves the Saraswati like river system.Many settlements once lay along a large river that has since dried or diminished.Geological studies suggest eastward shifts and reductions in major river flows.Such changes would disrupt irrigation, agriculture, and transport routes.Over time urban life may have become unsustainable, pushing people toward smaller towns.There is little clear evidence for a sudden violent invasion causing the collapse.This brings us to the Aryan migration debate, which connects archaeology, linguistics, and politics.The term Arya appears in ancient Indian texts as a social and cultural self description.Modern linguists use a related term, Indo Aryan, for a branch of the Indo European language family.Sanskrit, the classical language of ancient India, belongs to this Indo Aryan group.So do several modern north Indian languages, such as Hindi and Bengali.The key question concerns how and when Indo Aryan languages spread into the subcontinent.For many years a theory of Aryan invasion dominated older scholarship.It imagined horse riding warriors sweeping into India, destroying Indus cities, and imposing culture.Archaeological evidence does not fit this dramatic picture of sudden large scale conquest.Indus cities declined before the earliest clear traces of horse centered steppe cultures appear.Burn layers or mass destruction consistent with sweeping invasions are mostly absent.So the simple invasion model has been largely abandoned by specialists.A more nuanced migration model has broad support among many historians and linguists.According to this view, groups from Central Eurasian steppe and forest regions moved gradually south.They entered northwestern India over several centuries during the late Bronze Age.They brought Indo Aryan dialects, horse and chariot technologies, and new ritual traditions.These newcomers then interacted with existing populations, leading to cultural fusion.Over time this mixture shaped what we call Vedic culture.Genetic studies add complexity to this picture.They suggest long term mixtures between ancestral South Asian populations and groups from the northwest.Some of these mixtures date to after the decline of the Indus urban system.However they do not show a complete population replacement.Instead they indicate layered contributions from multiple directions and periods.Researchers continue to debate the scale, pace, and social impact of these movements.Within India this discussion carries strong political and cultural overtones.Some argue for an indigenous origin of Vedic culture without significant external migrations.They point to continuities in symbols, settlement regions, and ritual practices.Others emphasize linguistic links and archaeological parallels with steppe cultures.The most balanced approach recognizes both migrations and local continuities.It sees Vedic culture as emerging from interaction, not from one single source.As urban life waned in the northwest, new cultural patterns emerged in the Ganges plain.Here, over centuries, Vedic speaking communities shaped much of early Indian tradition.The earliest sacred texts of this world are the Vedas.The oldest among them, the Rig Veda, is a collection of hymns composed in archaic Sanskrit.These hymns praise various deities, reflect ritual concerns, and hint at social structures.They were transmitted orally with meticulous care for many generations.The society described in the Rig Veda was at least partly semi pastoral.Cattle played an important role in wealth, ritual sacrifice, and social status.People also practiced agriculture, but herds and horses receive special emphasis in these hymns.Chariots drawn by horses appear as symbols of power and prestige.Lineage based clans and tribes were led by chiefs who sought fame and divine favor.Poets and priests composed hymns that linked ritual success to worldly success.Religious life centered on sacrificial rituals, called yajnas.Fire altars were built, offerings of clarified butter, grains, and animals were made.Priests chanted mantras to invite the gods and secure blessings.Major deities included Indra, a storm and warrior god, and Agni, the fire god.Soma, both a ritual drink and a deity, also occupied a prominent place.People expected gods to grant cattle, sons, victory, and cosmic order in return for offerings.Over time, Vedic society became more settled and agrarian.Communities moved eastward from the Punjab region into the Ganges Yamuna plains.Dense forests were cleared for agriculture, often with iron tools in later centuries.As land cultivation expanded, political structures grew more complex and hierarchical.Kingship became more pronounced, with rulers performing grand rituals to assert authority.The sacrificial system also grew increasingly elaborate and specialized.Social organization developed around a fourfold varna scheme.These varnas were broad social categories, not yet the later detailed caste groups.They included Brahmins, the priests and ritual specialists.Kshatriyas, the warriors and rulers, formed another category.Vaishyas, associated with herding and agriculture, formed the third group.Shudras, linked with servile tasks, constituted the fourth category.
