Question: In what time period were the foundations of Hindu literature laid?
About the article "India", section "Culture".

Candidate passages:
Indian cultural history spans more than 4,500 years.
During the Vedic period (c. 1700 – 500 BCE), the foundations of Hindu philosophy, mythology, and literature were laid, and many beliefs and practices which still exist today, such as "dhárma", "kárma", "yóga", and "mokṣa", were established.
India is notable for its religious diversity, with Hinduism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, and Jainism among the nation's major religions.
The predominant religion, Hinduism, has been shaped by various historical schools of thought, including those of the "Upanishads", the "Yoga Sutras", the "Bhakti" movement, and by Buddhist philosophy.
The 16th century and 17th century in Wales, as in the rest of Europe, were a period of great change.
Politically, socially, and economically the foundations of modern Wales were laid at this time.
In the Laws in Wales Acts 1535-1542 Wales was annexed and integrated fully into the English kingdom, losing any vestiges of political or legal independence.
The political-religious settlement of Elizabeth I through the 1559 Act of Uniformity made Wales in name a Protestant country only to be reinforced by developments during and after the English Civil War.
This period also saw the beginnings of industries such as coal mining, metal-mining for lead and iron smelting, which led to the mass industrialisation of the following centuries. 
Classical Hindu law is a category of Hindu law (dharma) in traditional Hinduism, taken to begins with the transmittance of the Vedas and ending in 1772 with the adoption of "A Plan for the Administration of Justice in Bengal" by the Bengal government.
Law during the classical period was theologically based on the dharmasastra, and dharma which was traditionally delineated by "learned people" or scholars of the Vedas.
However, in reality, classical Hindu law was diverse in practice, varying between locations, vocational groups, and castes.
Thus, the common source of classical Hindu law was the community and, therefore, laws on a whole were highly decentralized and diverse.
These laws were dictated by various corporate groups such as merchant leaders, heads of caste, and kings, and because of the diverse leadership, these laws were particular to a set place.
Records of classical Hindu law can be found in the Manu Smriti and other smṛti literature; although, actual court records during this time period are rare.  
Mangalkavya were used to describe the greatness of particular Hindu deities known as "nimnokoti" (roughly translating as lower) by historians, because they were absent or unimportant in classical Hindu literature such as the Vedas or Puranas.
These deities were based on indigenous to Bengal (like Manasa) who had become assimilated in regional Hinduism.
These deities are often depicted with unusually strong human qualities and they engage in direct interaction with humans.
They are also portrayed to have flaws such as envy like other human beings.
In the time period when they were produced, Mangalkavya was the representation of nearly all medieval Bengali literature.
Mangalkavya was the main form of expression in the Later Middle Period of the language. 
Jaspers argued that during the Axial Age "the spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently in China, India, Persia, Judea, and Greece.
And these are the foundations upon which humanity still subsists today."
These foundations were laid by individual thinkers within a framework of a changing social environment.