Metallurgical Semantics and the Chronology of the Rigveda: A Philological Reassessment of āyas
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2026
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| author | gemsofindology |
| author_facet | gemsofindology |
| contents | <p>The dating of the Rigveda is conventionally situated in the second millennium BCE, frequently correlated with the emergence of iron technology in North India. A key linguistic premise underlying this chronological alignment has been the interpretation of the Vedic term āyas as “iron.” This paper re-examines that assumption through a comprehensive philological analysis of āyas within the Rigvedic corpus. By assembling a full concordance of occurrences and evaluating contextual usage, this study demonstrates that āyas in the Rigveda functions as a generic designation for “metal,” without internal differentiation between ferrous and non-ferrous substances. Notably absent are colour qualifiers such as lohita (reddish) and śyāma (dark), which appear in later Vedic texts, particularly the Atharvaveda, where metallurgical distinction becomes lexically explicit.</p> <p>Situating these semantic patterns within the archaeometallurgical record of South Asia, the paper distinguishes between the early presence of iron and its cultural normalization as a differentiated technological category. The undifferentiated usage of āyas in the Rigveda aligns more closely with a Bronze-Age conceptual environment than with a fully developed Iron-Age horizon. Rather than proposing a fixed alternative date for the Rigveda, this study argues that metal terminology has been used too simplistically as a chronological marker. The semantic behavior of āyas complicates attempts to anchor the Rigvedic corpus securely within an Iron Age framework and calls for a reassessment of how linguistic evidence is integrated with archaeological periodization in early South Asian historiography. </p> |
| format | Recurso digital |
| id | zenodo_https___doi_org_10_5281_zenodo_18814422 |
| institution | Zenodo |
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| publishDate | 2026 |
| publisher | Zenodo |
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| spellingShingle | Metallurgical Semantics and the Chronology of the Rigveda: A Philological Reassessment of āyas gemsofindology Rigved ayas vedic studies iron copper age <p>The dating of the Rigveda is conventionally situated in the second millennium BCE, frequently correlated with the emergence of iron technology in North India. A key linguistic premise underlying this chronological alignment has been the interpretation of the Vedic term āyas as “iron.” This paper re-examines that assumption through a comprehensive philological analysis of āyas within the Rigvedic corpus. By assembling a full concordance of occurrences and evaluating contextual usage, this study demonstrates that āyas in the Rigveda functions as a generic designation for “metal,” without internal differentiation between ferrous and non-ferrous substances. Notably absent are colour qualifiers such as lohita (reddish) and śyāma (dark), which appear in later Vedic texts, particularly the Atharvaveda, where metallurgical distinction becomes lexically explicit.</p> <p>Situating these semantic patterns within the archaeometallurgical record of South Asia, the paper distinguishes between the early presence of iron and its cultural normalization as a differentiated technological category. The undifferentiated usage of āyas in the Rigveda aligns more closely with a Bronze-Age conceptual environment than with a fully developed Iron-Age horizon. Rather than proposing a fixed alternative date for the Rigveda, this study argues that metal terminology has been used too simplistically as a chronological marker. The semantic behavior of āyas complicates attempts to anchor the Rigvedic corpus securely within an Iron Age framework and calls for a reassessment of how linguistic evidence is integrated with archaeological periodization in early South Asian historiography. </p> |
| title | Metallurgical Semantics and the Chronology of the Rigveda: A Philological Reassessment of āyas |
| topic | Rigved ayas vedic studies iron copper age |
| url | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18814422 |