The earliest religious text, the Rigveda was compiled in c. ________________.
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → 1500 - 1000 BCE
The Rigveda is the earliest religious text of the subcontinent and was compiled in c. 1500-1000 BCE. It mentions a god named Rudra, a name used for Shiva in the later Puranic traditions. This is why historians are careful when they read Harappan ‘proto-Shiva’ seals with the help of much later texts.
Note: A same/similar question was asked in CUET (UG) in the papers below.
| 2026 | 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 |
| 21-05 S2 24-05 S1* | – | – | – | – |
* A similar question.
NCERT (2025-26): “11.2 Problems of interpretation … Many reconstructions of Harappan religion are made on the assumption that later traditions provide parallels with earlier ones. This is because archaeologists often move from the known to the unknown, that is, from the present to the past. While this is plausible in the case of stone querns and pots, it becomes more speculative when we extend it to ‘religious’ symbols. Let us look, for instance, at the ‘proto-Shiva’ seals. The earliest religious text, the Rigveda (compiled c. 1500-1000 BCE) mentions a god named Rudra, which is a name used for Shiva in later Puranic traditions (in the first millennium CE; see also Chapter 4).…” |