McClish, Mark; Olivelle, Patrick (2012), "Introduction", ใน M. McClish; P. Olivelle (บ.ก.), The Arthasastra: Selections from the Classic Indian Work on Statecraft, Hackett Publishing, p. xxiv, ISBN1-60384-903-3: "Although the Vedas are essentially liturgical documents and increasingly mystical reflections on Vedic ritual, they are sufficiently rich and extensive to give us some understanding of what life was like at the time. The earliest of the Vedas, the Ṛgveda Saṃhitā, contains 1,028 hymns, some of which may be as old as 1500 BCE. Because the Vedic texts are the primary way in which we can understand the period between the fall of the IVC (ca 1700) and the second wave of urbanization (600 BCE), we call the intervening era of South Asian history the 'Vedic Period.'"
