Kuru kingdom

The Kuru Kingdom was a Vedic Indo-Aryan tribal union in northern India of the Bharata and Puru tribes. The Kuru kingdom appeared in the Middle Vedic period (c. 1200 – c. 900 BCE) during the Iron age of India, encompassing parts of the modern-day states of Haryana, Delhi, and some North parts of Western Uttar Pradesh. The Kuru Kingdom was the first recorded state-level society in the Indian subcontinent. The Kuru kingdom became a dominant political and cultural force in the middle Vedic Period during the reigns of Parikshit and Janamejaya, but declined in importance during the late Vedic period (c. 900 – c. 500 BCE) and had become "something of a backwater" by the Mahajanapada period in the 5th century BCE. However, traditions and legends about the Kurus continued into the post-Vedic period, providing the basis for the Mahabharata epic. The Kuru kingdom corresponds with the archaeological Painted Grey Ware culture. The Kuru kingdom collected and standardized the Vedas, reorganizing the scattered, secret ancestral hymns of different clans into systematic collections, forming the bulk of the Rigveda, as well as compiling the Samaveda, Yajurveda and Atharvaveda, the religious heritage of the early Vedic period, arranging their ritual hymns into collections called the Vedas, and developing new rituals, that gained their position in Indian culture as the Srauta rituals. They transformed the historical Vedic religion into Brahmanism, which eventually contributed to the Hindu synthesis.