Daily Static Quiz Prelims Practice 2027
Janapada, combining Jana (people) and pada (foot or settled place), literally means "where the people have settled their foot," marking the critical shift from the mobile, pastoral Jana of the Rigvedic period to settled, territorially defined kingdoms of the post-Vedic age. Option (a) instead describes a Rigvedic tribal setup, and by the later period the Rajan's position was becoming hereditary rather than annually elected. Option (c) confuses the term with Rajasuya, a royal consecration sacrifice that was never itself called a Janapada, while option (d) borrows later Mauryan administrative terminology, since Rajukas were Ashokan officers and not Vedic-age tax collectors.
- The Varna system in the Later Vedic period became more rigid and hereditary compared to the more flexible occupational divisions seen in the Rigvedic period.
- The Purusha Sukta of the Rigveda provides the earliest textual reference to a four-fold Varna division.
- In the Later Vedic period, the Kshatriyas often rivalled and sometimes superseded the Brahmanas in social status.
- The Shudras were the fourth Varna and were prohibited from performing Vedic sacrifices or hearing the Vedas.
Statements 1, 2 and 4 are correct, while Statement 3 is wrong. The relatively fluid, occupation-linked Varna divisions of the Rigvedic period became increasingly hereditary, birth-based, and socially rigid in the Later Vedic period, and the Purusha Sukta (Rigveda X.90) is the earliest textual source describing the four Varnas — Brahmana from the mouth, Rajanya/Kshatriya from the arms, Vaishya from the thighs, and Shudra from the feet — as emerging from the cosmic sacrifice of Purusha, with Shudras systematically excluded from Vedic rites and the sacred thread ceremony in this period. Statement 3 is incorrect because it was actually the Brahmanas who reasserted and consolidated supremacy over the Kshatriyas through control of rituals and textual authority, so while Kshatriyas held power, Brahmanas remained at the apex of the Varna hierarchy.
Rajasuya was the royal consecration or coronation sacrifice, an elaborate ritual complex that legitimised a Kshatriya king's authority, while Ashvamedha, the horse sacrifice, involved releasing a horse to roam freely for a year across territories, with lands that did not challenge it being claimed as the king's domain, making it a rite of imperial territorial assertion. Option (b) reverses the two rituals and wrongly turns Rajasuya into an agricultural fertility rite. Option (c) partially confuses Vajapeya, which was actually a chariot race and soma-drinking rite distinct from the horse sacrifice, while option (d) wrongly casts Ashvamedha as a priestly initiation, when it was always a royal or imperial rite rather than a priestly one.
Reason (R): The Upanishads assert that Brahman and Atman are ultimately identical — "Aham Brahmasmi" (I am Brahman) — forming the philosophical core of Advaita (non-dualist) Vedanta.
Both A and R are correct, but R does not explain A. Assertion A correctly defines Brahman as the ultimate universal reality or cosmic soul and Atman as the individual self, the two foundational concepts of Upanishadic metaphysics, while Reason R correctly states that "Aham Brahmasmi," one of the four Mahavakyas of the Upanishads, asserts the identity of the individual Atman with universal Brahman, forming the core of Advaita Vedanta as later systematised by Adi Shankaracharya. However, A merely defines the two terms whereas R describes their philosophical relationship of identity, going beyond what A states rather than explaining why A is true, which is why (b) rather than (a) is the correct choice.
- The Later Vedic period saw the eastward movement of Aryan settlements from the Sapta Sindhu region towards the Gangetic plains.
- The Ashrama system (four stages of life) was fully developed and codified in the Later Vedic period.
- Gotra (lineage/clan) became an important social institution in the Later Vedic period, used to regulate marriage and social relations.
- Iron (Shyama Ayas / Krishna Ayas) was introduced and widely used during the Later Vedic period.
All four statements correctly identify distinguishing features of the Later Vedic period. Aryan settlements expanded eastward from Punjab, or Sapta Sindhu, into the Gangetic Doab and beyond, one of the defining geographical shifts of the age, while the Ashrama system of Brahmacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha, and Sannyasa was codified as a normative framework for life stages, and Gotra, literally "cow-pen," emerged as a crucial lineage-based institution regulating exogamy, meaning one could not marry within the same Gotra. Iron, called Shyama Ayas or Krishna Ayas ("dark metal"), appears in the Atharva Veda and other Later Vedic texts, and its tools enabled forest clearance and agricultural expansion into the Gangetic plains.
