Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/34

 It need scarcely be stated that agriculture was practised by the primitive Aryans, and it was this occupation which probably gave them their name (ārya＝cultivator). Corn was ground, prepared, and cooked in various ways, while the flocks of sheep and cows by which every family was surrounded afforded milk and meat. There can be little doubt that, although



agriculture was largely resorted to, many patriarchs of families used also to rove about from place to place with their attendants and flocks in search of new pastures, and a fairly large portion of the early Aryans led a nomad life.

War was not infrequent in those primitive times, and weapons of bone and of wood, of stone and of metal, were known. The bow and the arrow, the sword and the spear seem to have been the weapons of war.