Kuru-Panchala

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Vedic India and the Kuru Panchala

The Kuru-Panchala were an Indo-Aryan tribal confederation in the Vedic period in northern India .

History and myth

The tribal association of the Kuru-Panchala was probably formed in the 11th century BC. And was of fundamental importance to the development of early Indian society. Nothing is known about the length of its existence. At least the Kuru empire perished in late Vedic times under the pressure of the Salva that followed.

The three tribes of the Kuru (also: Kaurava ) settled in the space between the Five Rivers and the upper Ganges plain , and the six clans of the Panchala sat in the upper Ganges plain. The Kuru kings traced their ancestry back to the Paurava or Bharata for centuries , but the traditional genealogy is variable. There were only a few decades between the famous Bharata king Sudas (a) and the well-known Kuru king Parikshit , because Parikshit's most important priest Tura Kavasheya was the great-grandson of a priest named Kavasha who was killed in the " Battle of the Ten Kings ". Parikshit is mentioned in the Puranas , the Mahabharata and in a hymn of the Atharvaveda . Its capital was called Asandivat and is possibly today's Asandh on the Chitang River, but is also often identified with Hastinapura . A second center is said to have been Indraprastha , ie Delhi. Since the Indo-Aryan tribes were still semi-nomadic at that time wandering around in ox carts and robbing their farming Dasyu neighbors, the existence of a political center was a novelty.

Parikshit's son was named Janamejaya . According to the Mahabharata, he is said to have conquered Taxila and at least to have been a great conqueror according to the Aitareya Brahmana . His three brothers Bhimasena, Ugrasena and Shrutasena organized the Vedic horse sacrifice ( ashvamedha ) , the successful execution of which included the recognition of sovereignty by the neighbors. A horse was consecrated and released for a year. An army (or: 400 warriors) followed him and opened the fight against any opponent who dared to block the path of the animal. Then it was strangled, put under a blanket with the queen, cut up, cooked and sacrificed.

Origin of the caste system

During the Bharata and even more so during the Kuru period, four estates formed, which were later classified in the Indian caste system . Three of these stands, i.e. H. the class of priests ( Brahmins ), nobles ( Kshatriya ) and free tribesmen ( Vaishya ) were reserved for the Aryans, while the (reliable?) subjects were classified in a fourth class as Shudra . The hierarchical model replaced the rampant struggle of the Indo-Aryans among themselves with a competition in which one had to earn one's place in the hierarchy by observing a religious ritual, that is, it regulated the Indo-Aryan society. As a result, the approx. 30 Indo-Aryan tribes of the Rigveda no longer fought against each other, but the large association of Kuru-Panchala or the "Mittelland" (madhyadesa) was formed , next to which smaller tribes are only mentioned in passing. Campaigns to the east and south took the place of internal disputes and the Indo-Aryan model of society was exported partly forcibly and partly peacefully (approx. 1000–800 BC). However, as non-Aryans, the natives were excluded from the possibility of acquiring a suitable ritual position and their discrimination was carried over to some of their professions (e.g. blacksmith, miller).

archeology

At the time of the Kuru-Panchala, a gray painted ceramic ( Painted Gray Ware , PGW) was in use, but it is difficult to assign it to one or the other tribe. The earliest use of iron dates back to this time.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Witzel: The old India, p. 35