Trade in those days consisted in barter, the cow being the pecuniary standard by which the value of everything was measured. The transition to coinage was made by the use of gold ornaments and jewelry as a form of reward or payment, as was the case among the ancient Germans. Thus nishka, which in the Rigveda means a necklet, in later times became the name of a coin.
Though the requirements of life in early Vedic times were still primitive enough to enable every man more or less to supply his own wants, the beginnings of various trades and industries can be clearly traced in the Rigveda. References are particularly frequent to the labour of the worker in wood, who was still carpenter, joiner, and wheelwright in one. As the construction of chariots and carts required peculiar skill, we find that certain men already devoted themselves to it as a special art, and worked at it for pay. Hence felicity in the composition of hymns is often compared with the dexterity of the wheelwright. Mention is also sometimes made of the smith who smelts the ore in a forge, using the wing of a bird instead of a bellows to produce a draught. He is described as making kettles as well as other domestic utensils of metal. The Rigveda also refers to tanners and the skins of animals prepared by them. Women, it appears, were acquainted with sewing and with the plaiting of mats from grass or reeds. An art much more frequently alluded to in metaphors and similes is that of weaving, but the references are so brief that we obtain no insight into the process. The Atharva-veda, however, gives some details in a passage which describes how Night and Day, personified as two sisters, weave the web of the year alternately with threads that never break or come to an end. The division of labour had been greatly developed by the time of the White Yajurveda, in which a great many trades and vocations are enumerated. Among these we find the rope-maker, the jeweller, the elephant-keeper, and the actor.
Among the active and warlike Vedic Aryans the chariot-race was a favourite amusement, as is shown by the very metaphors which are borrowed from this form of sport. Though skilful driving was still a highly esteemed art in the epic period, the use of the chariot both for war and for racing gradually died out in Hindustan, partly perhaps owing to the enervating influence of the climate, and partly to the scarcity of horses, which had to be brought from the region of the Indus.
The chief social recreation of men when they met together was gambling with dice. The irresistible fascination exercised, and the ruin often entailed by this amusement, we have already found described in the Gambler’s Lament. Some haunted the gaming-hall to such an extent that we find them jocularly described in the Yajurveda as “pillars of the playhouse” (sabhāsthāṇu). No certain information can be gathered from the Rigveda as to how the game was played. We know, however, from one passage that four dice were used. The Yajurveda mentions a game played with five, each of which has a name. Cheating at play appears in the Rigveda as one of the most frequent of crimes; and one poet speaks of dice as one of the chief sources of sinning against the ordinances of Varuṇa. Hence the word used in the Rigveda for “gamester” (kitava) in classical Sanskrit came to mean “cheat,” and a later word for “rogue” (dhūrta) is used as a synonym of “gamester.”
Another amusement was dancing, which seems to have been indulged in by men as well as women. But when the sex of the dancers is distinctly referred to, they are nearly always maidens. Thus the Goddess of Dawn is compared to a dancer decked in gay attire. That dancing took place in the open air may be gathered from the line (x. 76, 6), “thick dust arose as from men who dance” (nṛityatām).
Various references in the Rigveda show that even in that early age the Indians were acquainted with different kinds off music. For we find the three main types of percussion, wind, and stringed instruments there represented by the drum (dundubhi), the flute (vāṇa), and the lute (vīṇā). The latter has ever since been the favourite musical instrument of the Indians down to the present day. That the Vedic Indians were fond of instrumental music may be inferred from the statement of a Rishi that the sound of the flute is heard in the abode of Yama, where the blessed dwell. From one of the Sūtras we learn that instrumental music was performed at some religious rites, the vīṇā being played at the sacrifice to the Manes. By the time of the Yajurveda several kinds of professional musicians appear to have arisen, for lute-players, drummers, flute-players, and conch-blowers are enumerated in its list of callings. Singing is, of course, very often mentioned in the Rigveda. That vocal music had already got beyond the most primitive stage may be concluded from the somewhat complicated method of chanting the Sāmaveda, a method which was probably very ancient, as the Soma ritual goes back to the Indo-Iranian age.
[1] The component parts of this name are in Sanskrit pancha, five, and āp, water.
[2] From the Sanskrit dakshiṇa, south, literally “right,” because the Indians faced the rising sun when naming the cardinal points.
[3] German, vieh; Latin, pecus, from which pecunia, “money.”