Who were the 'sutas' in reference to ancient India?

Charioteer-bards, who commonly accompanied Kshatriya warriors to the battleground and penned poems celebrating their triumphs and other achievements.

The correct answer is Option 3 - Charioteer-bards, who commonly accompanied Kshatriya warriors to the battleground and penned poems celebrating their triumphs and other achievements.

Charioteer-bards known as 'sutas' generally accompanied Kshatriya warriors to the battlefield and composed poems celebrating their victories and other achievements.

Generally historians agree that the Mahabharata was meant to be a dramatic, moving story, and that the didactic portions were probably added later.Interestingly, the text is described as an itihasa within early Sanskrit tradition. The literal meaning of the term is “thus it was”, which is why it is generally translated as “history”. Was there a real war that was remembered in the epic? We are not sure. Some historians think that the memory of an actual conflict amongst kinfolk was preserved in the narrative; others point out that there is no other corroborative evidence of the battle.

Who wrote the text? This is a question to which there are several answers. The original story was probably composed by charioteer-bards known as sutas who generally accompanied Kshatriya warriors to the battlefield and composed poems celebrating their victories and other achievements. These compositions circulated orally. Then, from the fifth century BCE, Brahmanas took over the story and began to commit it to writing.