Read the passage and answer the questions:
The Sudarshana Lake and Pandya chief visits the Forest
The Sudarshana lake was an artificial reservoir. We know about it from a rock inscription (c. second century CE) in Sanskrit, composed to record the achievements of the ruler Rudradaman. The inscription mentions that the lake, with embankments and water channels, was built by a local governor during the rule of the Mauryas. However, a terrible storm broke the embankments and water gushed out of the lake. Rudradaman, who was then ruling in the area, claimed to have got the lake repaired using his own resources, without imposing any tax on his subjects. Another inscription on the same rock (c. fifth century) mentions how one of the rulers of the Gupta dynasty got the lake repaired once again.
The excerpt for the Pandya chief is an epic written in Tamil. When he visited the forest, people came down the mountains, singing and dancing … just as the defeated show respect to the victorious king, so did they bring gifts - ivory, fragrant wood, fans made of the hair of deer, honey, sandalwood, red ochre, antimony, turmeric, cardamom, pepper, etc. …they brought coconuts, mangoes, medicinal plants, fruits, onions, sugarcane, flowers, nuts, bananas, baby tiger, lions, elephants, monkeys, bear, deer, musk deer, fox, peacocks, musk cat, speaking parrots, etc. …
The rock inscription related to Sudarshana lake was composed in which language?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 3
The correct answer is Option (3) → Sanskrit
We know about the Sudarshana lake, an artificial reservoir in Gujarat, from a rock inscription of about the second century CE. The passage says that this inscription was composed in Sanskrit, to record the achievements of the ruler Rudradaman.
Note: This passage joins two source boxes of the NCERT chapter ‘Kings, Farmers and Towns’: the one on the Sudarshana lake and the one on the Pandya chief’s visit to the forest. NTA took out three names, Shaka, Senguttuvan and Silappadikaram, and then asked for them. All three are printed in those two boxes.
NCERT: Themes in Indian History Part I — Chapter 2: Kings, Farmers and Towns (2025-26)
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