Consider the following statements and chose the correct answer:

Statement I: The age of the four-varna classification and the age of the caste system are same.

Statement II: An institution may continue to exist while undergoing significant changes in its structure and functioning.

Statement I is incorrect but Statement II is correct.

The correct answer is Option 3: Statement I is incorrect but Statement II is correct.

The four-varna classification is generally regarded as being roughly three thousand years old. However, it is misleading to assume that the caste system remained exactly the same throughout this entire period. The institution underwent significant changes over time. Therefore, the age of the four-varna classification cannot automatically be equated with the age of the caste system in its later form.

Statement I: The age of the four-varna classification and the age of the caste system are same. — Incorrect. This statement ignores the fact that the caste system represented different social arrangements in different historical periods. While the four-varna classification is ancient, the rigid caste system associated with later periods developed gradually over time.

Statement II: An institution may continue to exist while undergoing significant changes in its structure and functioning. — Correct. An institution can persist across centuries even though its organisation, rules and social significance change substantially. This idea helps explain why the caste system cannot be treated as unchanged for three thousand years.

NCERT: "Opinions also differ on the exact age of the caste system. It is generally agreed though, that the four varna classification is roughly three thousand years old. However, the ‘caste system’ stood for different things in different time periods, so that it is misleading to think of the same system continuing for three thousand years. In its earliest phase, in the late Vedic period roughly between 900 — 500 BC, the caste system was really a varna system and consisted of only four major divisions. These divisions were not very elaborate or very rigid, and they were not determined by birth. Movement across the categories seems to have been not only possible but quite common. It is only in the post Vedic period that caste became the rigid institution that is familiar to us from well known definitions. ".