WThe Vedic period, or Vedic age, is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic Hindu literature, including the Vedas, was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the end of the Urban Indus Valley Civilisation and a second urbanisation which began in the central Indo-Gangetic Plain c. 600 BCE. The Vedas are liturgical texts which formed the basis of modern day Hinduism, which also developed in the Kuru Kingdom. The Vedas contain details of life during this period that have been interpreted to be historical and constitute the primary sources for understanding the period. These documents, alongside the corresponding archaeological record, allow for the evolution of the Vedic culture to be traced and inferred.
WThe Agnicayana or Athirathram is a category of advanced Śrauta rituals.
WThe Arctic Home in the Vedas is a 1903 book on the origin of the Indo-Aryan peoples by Indian nationalist, teacher and independence activist Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Based on his analysis of Vedic hymns, Avestic passages, Vedic chronology and Vedic calendars, Tilak argued that the North Pole was the original home of Aryans during the pre-glacial period, which they left due to climate changes around 8000 B.C., migrating to the Northern parts of Europe and Asia.
WĀryāvarta is a term for northern parts of the Indian subcontinent in the ancient Hindu texts such as Dharmashastras and Sutras, referring to the area of the Indian subcontinent settled by Indo-Aryan tribes and where Indo-Aryan religion and rituals predominated. The limits of Āryāvarta extended over time, as reflected in the various sources, as the influence of the Brahmanical ideology spread eastwards in post-Vedic times.
WAyurveda is an alternative medicine system with historical roots in the Indian subcontinent. The theory and practice of Ayurveda is pseudoscientific. The Indian Medical Association describes Ayurvedic practitioners who claim to practice medicine as quacks. Ayurveda is heavily practiced in India and Nepal, where around 80% of the population report using it.
WThe Bhrigu Saṃhitā is a Sanskrit astrological (Jyotisha) treatise attributed in its introduction to Maharishi Bhrigu, one of the Saptarishis of the Vedic period. Its introductory chapter states that it was compiled by the saptrishi uttaradhikari out of compassion for humanity so that humanity could cope with the pressures of its existence and move towards a more spiritual nature. The Bhrigu Samhita claims to contain predictions about current and future lives as well as information about past lives.
WDhritarashtra was a Kuru king who featured heavily in the Hindu epic Mahabharata as the interim King of the Kuru Kingdom with its capital at Hastinapur. He was born to Vichitravirya's first wife Ambika. Dhritarashtra was born blind. He fathered one hundred sons and one daughter, Dushala, by his wife, Gandhari and a son, Yuyutsu, by his wife's maid. These children, including the eldest son Duryodhana, but not including Yuyutsu and Dushala, came to be known as the Kauravas. Gandhari, his wife, sacrificed her eyesight, as he was blind, by blindfolding herself; hence, she could not see.
WGreater Magadha is a concept in studies of the early history of India. It is used to refer to the political and cultural sphere that developed in the lower Gangetic plains during the Vedic age. The śramaṇa culture of Greater Magadha developed separately from the orthodox Brahmin-oriented śrauta culture to its west, that was characteristic of the upper Ganges basin.
WA gurukula or gurukulam is a type of education system in ancient India with shishya living near or with the guru, in the same house. The guru-shishya tradition is a sacred one in Hinduism and possibly appears in other dharmas in India, such as Jainism and Buddhism. The word gurukula is a combination of the Sanskrit words guru and kula. The term is also used today to refer to residential monasteries or schools operated by modern gurus. The proper plural of the term is gurukulam, though gurukulas and gurukuls are also used in English and some other Western languages.
WThe historical Vedic religion, and subsequently Brahmanism, constituted the religious ideas and practices among some of the Indo-Aryan peoples of northwest India of ancient India during the Vedic period. These ideas and practices are found in the Vedic texts, and some Vedic rituals are still practiced today. It is one of the major traditions which shaped Hinduism, though present-day Hinduism is markedly different from the historical Vedic religion.
WIndigenous Aryanism, also known as the Indigenous Aryans theory (IAT) and the Out of India theory (OIT), is the conviction that the Aryans are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent, and that the Indo-European languages radiated out from a homeland in India into their present locations. It is a "religio-nationalistic" view on Indian history, and propagated as an alternative to the established migration model, which considers the Pontic steppe to be the area of origin of the Indo-European languages.
WJanamejaya was a Kuru king who reigned during the Middle Vedic period. Along with his father and predecessor Parikshit, he played a decisive role in the consolidation of the Kuru state, the arrangement of Vedic hymns into collections, and the development of the orthodox srauta ritual, transforming the Kuru realm into the dominant political and cultural part of northern India. He also appears as a figure in later legends and traditions, the Mahabharata and the Puranas.
WParikshit was a Kuru king who reigned during the Middle Vedic period. Along with his son and successor Janamejaya, he played a decisive role in the consolidation of the Kuru state, the arrangement of Vedic hymns into collections, and the development of the orthodox srauta ritual, transforming the Kuru realm into the dominant political and cultural center of northern Iron Age India. He also appears as a figure in later legends and traditions. According to the Mahabharata and the Puranas, he succeeded his grand uncle Yudhishthira to the throne of Hastinapur.
WSiddha medicine is a traditional medicine originating in South India. It is one of the oldest systems of medicine in India.
WThe Suparṇākhyāna, also known as the Suparṇādhyāya, is a short epic poem or cycle of ballads in Sanskrit about the divine bird Garuda, believed to date from the late Vedic period. Considered to be among the "earliest traces of epic poetry in India," the text only survives "in very bad condition," and remains "little studied."
WVastu shastra are texts on the traditional Indian system of architecture. These texts describe principles of design, layout, measurements, ground preparation, space arrangement, and spatial geometry. The designs aim to integrate architecture with nature, the relative functions of various parts of the structure, and ancient beliefs utilising geometric patterns (yantra), symmetry, and directional alignments.