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Lesson Four: The Rig Veda and Vedic-Aryan Civilization

Objectives:

• Introduce students to the Vedic-Aryan Civilization and theories about the migration of people who spoke variations of a shared Indo-European language
• Discuss how differences in language can indicate differences in culture (especially worth-while in an international classroom setting)
• Introduce the caste system and the link between mythology and social reality

Procedure:
Introduce students to the idea of the caste system and the Indo-European Migration in a lecture.
Ask students to read selections from the Rig Veda and answer these guided reading questions.
An excellent selection of three hymns from the Rig Veda can be found in "The Human Record: Sources of Global History" (5th edition, Volume 1: to 1700. Alfred J. Andrea and James H. Overfield, ed. Houghton Mifflin: NY, 2005).
Slightly different selections are available online here from Washington State University. The reading questions are based on the text included in "The Human Record," but could be easily modified to fit the online text.

During the next class, go over the reading questions (you might like the printable answer key) and discuss how an ancient oral text like the Rig Veda can provide insight into a culture.

If you have done a unit on Ancient Greece, you might want to compare the Rig Veda with the Homeric Hymns, many of which are available online thanks to the Perseus Project.