The Vedas are liturgical texts which formed the basis of the influential Brahmanical ideology, which developed in the Kuru Kingdom, a tribal union of several Indo-Aryan tribes.

[2] The Vedas were composed and orally transmitted with precision[note 2] by speakers of an Old Indo-Aryan language who had migrated into the northwestern regions of the Indian subcontinent early in this period.

[note 3] Early Indo-Aryans were a Late Bronze Age society centred in the Punjab, organised into tribes rather than kingdoms, and primarily sustained by a pastoral way of life.

[28] It was "a syncretic mixture of old Central Asian and new Indo-European elements",[28] which borrowed "distinctive religious beliefs and practices" from the Bactria–Margiana culture,[29] including the god Indra and the ritual drink Soma.

[30][31] Likewise, Bronkhorst has argued that the central Ganges Plain was dominated by a related but non-Vedic Indo-Aryan culture,[32] a difference also noted by Samuel.

The confederation of tribes tried to inundate the Bharatas by opening the embankments of Ravi, yet Sudas emerged victorious in the Battle of Ten Kings.

[48] In this period the varna system emerged, state Kulke and Rothermund,[49] which in this stage of Indian history were a "hierarchical order of estates which reflected a division of labor among various social classes".

The Vedic period estates were four: Brahmin priests and warrior nobility stood on top, free peasants and traders were the third, and slaves, labourers and artisans, many belonging to the indigenous people, were the fourth.

[50][51][52] This was a period where agriculture, metal, and commodity production, as well as trade, greatly expanded,[53] and the Vedic era texts including the early Upanishads and many Sutras important to later Hindu culture were completed.

[55] Two key figures in this process of the development of the Kuru state were the king Parikshit and his successor Janamejaya, transforming this realm into the dominant political and cultural power of northern Iron Age India.

[56] This period saw also the beginning of the social stratification by the use of varna, the division of Vedic society in Brahmins, Kshatriya, Vaishya and Shudra.

[45] Later, in the 8th or 7th century BCE, the kingdom of Videha emerged as a political center farther to the East, in what is today northern Bihar of India and southeastern Nepal, reaching its prominence under the king Janaka, whose court provided patronage for Brahmin sages and philosophers such as Yajnavalkya, Uddalaka Aruni, and Gargi Vachaknavi;[8] Panchala also remained prominent during this period, under its king Pravahana Jaivali.

The process of urbanisation had begun in these kingdoms, commerce and travel flourished, even regions separated by large distances became easy to access.

[58] Anga, a small kingdom to the east of Magadha (on the door step of modern-day West Bengal), formed the eastern boundary of the Vedic culture.

[63] Meanwhile, in the Kosala-Magadha region, the shramana movements (including Jainism and Buddhism) objected the self-imposed authority and orthodoxy of the intruding Brahmins and their Vedic scriptures and ritual.

Meanwhile, the Achaemenid invasion of Cyrus and Darius I of the Indus valley in the early 6th century BCE marks the beginning of outside influence, which continued in the Kingdoms of the Indo-Greeks, Indo-Scythians, and Indo-Parthians.

Hereditary kingship started emerging and competitions like chariot races, cattle raids, and games of dice, which previously decided who was worthy of becoming a king, became nominal.

According to George Erdosy, archaeological data for the period from 1000 to 600 BCE shows a two-tiered settlement pattern in the Ganges Valley, with some "modest central places," suggestive of the existence of simple chiefdoms, with the Kurukshetra district itself displaying a more complex (albeit not yet urbanized) three-tiered hierarchy.

[86] Subsequently, (after 600 BCE) there are four tiers of site sizes, including large towns and fortified cities, consistent with an urbanized state-level society.

[69] Economic exchanges were conducted by gift giving, particularly to kings (bali) and priests (dana), and barter using cattle as a unit of currency.

[88] However, philological evidence indicates that ayas in the Rigveda refers only to copper and bronze, while iron or śyāma ayas, literally "black metal", first is mentioned in the post-Rigvedic Atharvaveda,[8][45] and therefore the Early Vedic Period was a Bronze Age culture whereas the Late Vedic Period was an Iron Age culture.

[citation needed] The rishis, the composers of the hymns of the Rigveda, were considered inspired poets and seers (in post-Vedic times understood as "hearers" of an eternally existing Veda, Śruti means "what is heard").

Yajna involved sacrifice and sublimation of the havana sámagri (herbal preparations) in the fire accompanied by the chanting of the Vedic mantras.

Strong traces of a common Indo-Iranian religion remain visible, especially in the Soma cult and the fire worship, both of which are preserved in Zoroastrianism.

[99] It has been suggested that the early Vedic religion focused exclusively on the worship of purely "elementary forces of nature by means of elaborate sacrifices", which did not lend themselves easily to anthropomorphological representations.

[104] This pottery is typically created with wheel ware, and is ill-fired, to a fine to medium fabric, decorated with a red slip, and occasional black bands1.

When this pottery was worked with, it often left an ochre color on the hands, most likely because of water-logging, bad firing, wind action, or a mixture of these factors.

[105] Most of these pieces of pottery were open-mouthed bowls that were burnished, painted, or slipped on one side; however, jars, pots and dishes-on-stands have also been found in small quantities.

[107] Painted grey ware culture is a significant pottery style that has been linked to a group of people who settled in Sutlej, Ghagger, and the Upper Ganga/Yamuna Valleys, loosely classified with the early Aryans who migrated to India in the beginning of the Vedic period.

[108] The style of grey-ware often includes clay wheel-thrown into a smooth texture, ash-grey in color, and often decorated with black ink, creating small circular patterns, sometimes spirals, swastikas, or sigmas.