The earliest written reference in Indian astronomy to a total solar eclipse is in the Rig Veda where Rishi Atri is said to have demolished the asura Swarbhanu to liberate the Sun from a total solar eclipse.
The Rig Veda describes the occurrence of the eclipse, how the Sun suddenly disappeared in the daytime under the spell of the Asura. The people and gods were scared but the Great Sage Atri saved the Sun and restored his full glory. While discussing the eclipse, Tilak refers to the eclipse as having occurred when the Vernal Equinox was in Orion and three days before the Autumnal Equinox.
Based on these data, we identify Atris eclipse as the one that occurred on 22 October 4202 BC or on 19 October 3811 BC.
The Rig Veda is one of the oldest known documents. It dates from 1500 BC, when its contents were assimilated and formalised on the basis of traditions of different schools of thought. It was essentially a summary of various religious ideas and philosophies, as well as their image of the world and its working as understood at that time. It comprises a set of 10 books associated with 10 different groups of priests who assimilated different aspects of the prevailing belief systems (see Dalal, 2014; Donigar, 1984). The writing style in the Rig Veda is highly poetic and abstract, and sometimes it is difficult to understand. It also requires some experience in order to interpret it.While the Rig Veda dates from 1500 BC, there is a significant amount of evidence that it incorporates memories of events that were much further back in time. For example, it discusses events when the Vernal Equinox was in Orion, which occurred around 4500 BC, while the final reference to the Vernal Equinox in the Rig Veda relates to its being in the Pleiades, which happened in 2230 BC.There are various other astronomical references in the Rig Veda, and one of these refers to a solar eclipse, which is the subject of this paper.
For the sake of argument, assuming that the Rig Veda is indeed referring to real historical events when it talks about where the equinoxes are (and that the means of determining which constellation is associated with an equinox), it could also help determine which part of of the hybrid culture that produced Hinduism in India, i.e. the Indo-Iranian tradition or the Harappan tradition, is the predominant source for the Rig Veda.
The dates suggested for Atri's Eclipse coincide roughly with the time at which the Proto-Indo-European language emerged. But this seems like a better fit to more sedentary and agricultural early Indus Valley civilization (the strict sense IVC dates to 3300 BCE, but agricultural societies in continuity with it were present there from 6500 BCE), which would have been expected to have better astronomy in that time frame. The more pastoral initial Proto-Indo-European society would be expected to have less advanced astronomy at that time. So, the Rig Veda could recount Harappan oral traditions (it had some writing, but the Harappan script was probably not a full written language) translated from the Harappan language into Sanskrit.
Another hint could be derived from comparing the Avesta, in the Avestan language, with the Rig Veda, written in Sanskrit. Where something is present in both, like the drug soma, it is likely to derive from a shared Indo-Iranian tradition. Where something is only found in the Rig Veda with no parallel in the Avesta it is more likely to have Harappan origins. But, the Avesta was compiled much later than the Rig Veda so a great deal of the Indo-Iranian tradition might have been lost or deliberately omitted by Zoroaster (who by tradition is its author) at that point in the 500s BCE. The oldest part of the Avesta, the 17 hymns called the Gathas written in Old Avestan comprise only about 6,000 words in 238 stanzas and have linguistic and cultural similarities to the Rig Veda, which has 1,028 hymns with 10,600 verses.
The Rig Veda and the historic religion of the Indo-Europeans were both polytheistic, while Zoroastrianism is usually characterized as dualistic. We know, however, that significant parts of what became the Hindu religious tradition deviated for the common Indo-European source of the religious traditions of the Norse, the Greeks, and the Romans, for example, and also have no source in Egyptian mythology. These deviations are plausibly attributed to Harappan sources.
The Wikipedia article on the Rig Veda is suggestive of a more Indo-Iranian than Harappan society, and states that:
The Rigveda offers no direct evidence of social or political systems in the Vedic era, whether ordinary or elite. Only hints such as cattle raising and horse racing are discernible, and the text offers very general ideas about the ancient Indian society. There is no evidence, state Jamison and Brereton, of any elaborate, pervasive or structured caste system. Social stratification seems embryonic, then and later a social ideal rather than a social reality.
The society was semi-nomadic and pastoral with evidence of agriculture since hymns mention plow and celebrate agricultural divinities. There was division of labor and a complementary relationship between kings and poet-priests but no discussion of a relative status of social classes.
Women in the Rigveda appear disproportionately as speakers in dialogue hymns, both as mythical or divine Indrani, Apsaras Urvasi, or Yami, as well as Apāla Ātreyī (RV 8.91), Godhā (RV 10.134.6), Ghoṣā Kākṣīvatī (RV 10.39.40), Romaśā (RV 1.126.7), Lopāmudrā (RV 1.179.1–2), Viśvavārā Ātreyī (RV 5.28), Śacī Paulomī (RV 10.159), Śaśvatī Āṅgirasī (RV 8.1.34). The women of the Rigveda are quite outspoken and appear more sexually confident than men, in the text. Elaborate and aesthetic hymns on wedding suggest rites of passage had developed during the Rigvedic period. There is little evidence of dowry and no evidence of sati in it or related Vedic texts.
The Rigvedic hymns mention rice and porridge, in hymns such as 8.83, 8.70, 8.77 and 1.61 in some versions of the text; however, there is no discussion of rice cultivation.
The term áyas (metal) occurs in the Rigveda, but it is unclear which metal it was. Iron is not mentioned in Rigveda, something scholars have used to help date Rigveda to have been composed before 1000 BCE. Hymn 5.63 mentions "metal cloaked in gold", suggesting that metalworking had progressed in the Vedic culture.
Some of the names of gods and goddesses found in the Rigveda are found amongst other belief systems based on Proto-Indo-European religion, while most of the words used share common roots with words from other Indo-European languages. However, about 300 words in the Rigveda are neither Indo-Aryan nor Indo-European, states the Sanskrit and Vedic literature scholar Frits Staal. Of these 300, many – such as kapardin, kumara, kumari, kikata – come from Munda or proto-Munda languages found in the eastern and northeastern (Assamese) region of India, with roots in Austroasiatic languages. The others in the list of 300 – such as mleccha and nir – have Dravidian roots found in the southern region of India, or are of Tibeto-Burman origins. A few non-Indo-European words in the Rigveda – such as for camel, mustard and donkey – belong to a possibly lost Central Asian language. The linguistic sharing provides clear indications, states Michael Witzel, that the people who spoke Rigvedic Sanskrit already knew and interacted with Munda and Dravidian speakers.
Witzel, however, was late to recognize that there was a distinct Harappan language which was neither Munda nor Dravidian.
As an aside, the Harappans did trade with the Sumerians who had a full written language and not just a set of symbols like the Harappan and Vinca scripts. Neither the Sumerian written language, nor the entire concept of it, however, seems to have been borrowed by the Harappans. Perhaps this was because Sumerian writing was largely confined to a small class of priest-clerks and perhaps some aristocrats, and perhaps because Sumerian-Harappan trade was thin and the Harappan maritime merchants may not have been all that influential in Harappan society. The Harappan script seems to have been used largely by merchants.
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