facts: in the Rig Veda wolf and lion are the most formidable beasts;
the tiger is unknown and the elephant seldom alluded to; while in the
Atharvan the tiger has taken the lion's place and the elephant is a
more familiar figure. Now the tiger has his domicile in the swampy
land about Benares, to which point is come the Atharvan Aryan, but not
the Rig Vedic people. Here too, in the Atharvan, the panther is first
mentioned, and for the first time silver and iron are certainly
referred to. In the Rig Veda the metals are bronze and gold, silver
and iron being unknown.[22] Not less significant are the trees. The
ficus religiosa, the tree later called the 'tree of the gods'
(_deva-sadana, açvattha_), under which are fabled to sit the
divinities in heaven, is scarcely known in the Rig Veda, but is well
known in the Atharvan; while India's grandest tree, the _nyagrodha_,
ficus indica, is known to the Atharvan and Brahmanic period, but is
utterly foreign to the Rig Veda. Zimmer deems it no less significant
that fishes are spoken of in the Atharvan and are mentioned only once
in the Rig Veda, but this may indicate a geographical difference less
than one of custom. In only one doubtful passage is the north-east
monsoon alluded to. The storm so vividly described in the Rig Veda is
the south-west monsoon which is felt in the northern Punj[=a]b. The
north-east monsoon is felt to the southeast of the Punj[=a]b, possibly
another indication of geographical extension, withal within the limits
of the Rig Veda itself.

The seat of culture shifts in the Brahmanic period, which follows that
of the Vedic poems, and is found partly in the 'holy land' of the
west, and partly in the east (Beh[=a]r, Tirhut).[23] The literature of
this period comes from Aryans that have passed out of the Punj[=a]b.
Probably, as we have said, settlements were left all along the line of
progress. Even before the wider knowledge of the post-Alexandrine