What ever we know about Vedic India is largely preserved through literary scriptures recorded in the ‘Books of knowledge’ called Vedas. The Vedas however were not compiled as histories but as literature -a sheaf of hymns. Vedas have therefore not recorded anything about the pre Indian history of the Aryans, the Indus Valley Civilization or the Aryan conquest over them. There are a few references about dark ‘dasa’ and ‘dasyus’ who lived in the fortified cities and had to be subdued. It is therefore believed that Aryan tribes conquered the pre-Aryan ‘dasas’ through out the Indus and Gangetic Valleys. Aryans when reached India  were nomadic tribes, they had no huts houses or villages. They learned much about urban settlements from the ‘dasas’ they enslaved. Aryan settlements started to rise on the plains around Delhi, whose capital is Indraprasta named after their most important God- Indra.

The Aryans brought horses and cows to India. The Aryan kings rode horse driven chariots which helped them defeat the enemies easily. The Aryan tribes not only fought against non-Aryans or aborigines, they fought amongst themselves very frequently. There was no regular army, the masses formed the contigents. The great battle of ‘Ten Kings’ which is described as the first r ecorded event of importance in Indian history was fought between Aryan kings- King Sudas on one side while ten allied Aryan kings on the other side. Non-Aryans under their own chiefs had joined the battle on both the sides. The battle of ten kings in which Sudas defeated the allied kings witnessed the end of the ‘Pure Aryans’. Now Sudas’  kingdom extended eastward and conquered many impenetrable areas with larger non-Aryan population. The victory of Sudas was the triumph of a coalition of Aryans and indigenous  non-Aryan people. The political assimilation of the Aryans and the non-Aryans got an impetus and started to take new shape after the triumph. The martial conflicts between them saw an era of rapid change and paved the way for racial synthesis.

The conquered race, the pre-Aryans had long background of civilization behind them. The Aryans on the other hand considered themselves vastly superior. Besides these Aryans and pre-Aryans, there were many backward aboriginal tribes mainly forest dwellers. Out of the conflicts and cooperation between these races there arose a synthesized and synchronized culture accommodating the habits and practices of the conflicting groups. Caste system is one of such practices which in course of succeeding centuries affected Indian life significantly. Caste was neither typically Aryan nor pre-Aryan. It was an outcome of the synthesized social system, a rationalisation of practices which existed at that time. Caste began with a watertight compartment system of division between Aryans and non-Aryans. It originally intended to separate the Aryans from the non-Aryans. But it took the rational form of division of labour and specialization of functions. Life was graded into four divisions-priests and philosophers who remained on the top were known as Brahmins, the rulers and warriors were Kshatriyas, the agriculturists, artisans and traders were Vaishyas and the labourers  and unskilled workers constituted the Sudras. No where in the world existed such a beautiful compartmentalisation based on the objective principle of division of labour and specilisation of functions. Although such type of four fold division was found in Greece and Iran, these civilizations were characterised by mass slavery which was not present in Indian caste system at that time.

Another such example of Aryan and pre-Aryan intercourse is the scripture called ‘Vedanta’ means the end of Veda. Vedanta evolved after centuries of interaction between these two races. The texts of these Vedic intellectual evolution with adequate non-Aryan influence were compiled in the form of ‘Upanisads’. In Sanskrit Upanisad means ‘to seat down in front of’ as that is how these ideas were conveyed by a single guru to his students. The brilliant Upanisadic dialogues introduced new concepts which became examples of Hindu synthesis. The concepts of ‘karma’ or laws of action, ‘Samsara’ or reincarnation, ‘Maya’ or illusion, ‘Mokshya’ or release of one’s soul were evolved under pre-Aryan influence. Historically Aryan conquerors appeared to have fallen under the spell of deeper pre-Aryan profundity and wisdom. How ever Upanisadic texts in spite of its radical doctrines were accepted as Vedic scriptures as it continued to recognise Brahminic dominancy. The contributions of Brahmins as assimilators and synthesisers were immense and ingenious.

The religious practices of the Aryans also got modified under the pre-Aryan influence. The gradual disappearance of the Aryan Gods is one of such clear evidence of non-Aryan impact. ‘Varuna’ and ‘Vayu’ who were considered as important Gods got reduced to backward positions. ‘Indra’- the mighty destroyer of cities was treated as a mere ceremonial king of the lower heaven while ‘Siva’ whom early Aryans didn’t worship now assumed greater significance and treated as a greater deity. The importance of mother Goddess in the patriarchal Aryan system also indicated the influence of matriarchal indigenous people.

The gradual transformation of Aryans from pastoral nomadism to agricultural society with village culture also witnessed the impact of prevailing indigenous culture over Aryans. The matrimonial alliances of kings and priests of both Aryan and non-Aryan population establishes the fact that much intermixture of blood between the two races had taken place. And present Indians are the products of such inevitable intermixture.