If “forts”, “dark-skinned enemies”, “chariots” and “spoked-wheels” are almost always metaphors for beings and devices operating in the supra-physical spheres, the counter-argument is that a metaphor nevertheless implies and presupposes a physical counterpart. The question, therefore, is whether the text offers a few non-metaphorical descriptions of battles, however embellished they may be.

By the time of the Katha Upanishad, the metaphor of the horse, though slightly altered from the Rgvedic imagery, had become perfectly explicit: “Know the self to be the chariot’s master, and the body, the chariot itself; know the intellect to be the charioteer, and the mind, the reins. “The horses”, the Upanishad continues, “are the five senses which must be reined in by our intellect and higher mind, and ultimately the self”. The chariot, here, stands for the body or our external being.

The fundamental assumption behind the horse argument is that asva, in the Rgveda, is a purely “Aryan” animal. But is that what the text actually says? No doubt, numerous references place asva, whatever the word means in the rishis’ mind, squarely on the side of the gods, the rishis or their helpers. But it turns out that there are quite a few revealing exceptions: the Dasyus and Panis also possess asvas, generally together with cows and treasures.