Meera, a research scholar in Chennai, is studying religious life in the subcontinent between the eighth and eighteenth centuries. She has gathered three kinds of material. The first is a collection of songs once sung by a poet-saint in a regional language, now printed from manuscripts kept for centuries in a monastery. The second is a life story of the same saint, written long after his death by followers of his sect. The third is a set of temple sculptures carved during the same centuries. Her supervisor asks her to judge each kind of source with care.
Meera's supervisor reminds her that by the mid-first millennium CE, some religious beliefs and practices of the subcontinent were already being reconstructed from textual traditions. Which texts, many of which received their present shape around that time, are meant here?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → The Puranas
Option (1) The Dharmasutras — Incorrect. The Dharmasutras are Sanskrit texts that laid down norms of social conduct for the varnas. Their subject is social duty and law.
Option (2) The Puranas — Correct. Beliefs and practices of this time were rebuilt from textual traditions, including the Puranas. Many Puranas got their present shape by the mid-first millennium CE.
Option (3) The Jatakas — Incorrect. The Jatakas are Buddhist stories of the Buddha's earlier births, from the Buddhist tradition.
Option (4) The Vedic Samhitas — Incorrect. The Vedic Samhitas are much older collections of hymns. Their main gods became minor figures in this later period.
NCERT (2026-27): “Bhakti- Sufi Traditions Changes in Religious Beliefs and Devotional Texts . eighth to eighteenth century) |