A major source of information on the Indo-Aryans are their sacred texts, preserved orally though many were later written down.
Earliest of these is Rigveda, hymns composed mainly in the later 2nd millennium BC; during this period, references in the Rigveda show that their authors were resident in the Punjab and the Ganges valley as far east as Delhi. Texts composed in the 1st millennium BC show progressive colonization of areas further east.
The people portrayed in Rigveda were nomadic herders, among whom cattle were most highly regarded. They rode horses, which also drew their carts and war chariots.
Warfare is a constant theme: theirs was a patriarchal tribal society constantly engaged in cattle raids and disputes over land. Among their enemies were the Dasas, small dark-skinned sedentary people, a description that would well fit the settled native farmers.
The Rigvedic people also grew a little wheat and barley and cultivation became more important as time went on. Commoners might farm, but the cream of Rigvedic society was its warrior aristocracy, maintaining the outward military needs of society, while the priests, who also enjoyed high status, invoked the power of the gods to the same end.
Their gods carried Rigvedic life into the divine sphere: Indra, hurling thunderbolts from his war chariot, destroying human enemies and inimical forces of nature, was the principal deity.
Sacrifice was the central rite in Vedic religion: Agni, god of fire, regarded as the purest and most sacred of the elements, presided over both the domestic hearth and sacrificial fire altars. Soma, an intoxicating plant, whose juice was pressed and drunk as part of the sacrificial rites, was also regarded as a god.
Goddesses hardly existed at this stage; their importance in later Hindu religion reflects a synthesis that developed between Indo-Aryan and native religions.
